A Fractured Blossom
by weebee
Summary: We all know that Sakura Haruno’s got some unusual mental issues, what with inner Sakura and all, but when a new mental voice shows up during her fight with Team Dosu, things go from awkward to just plain weird.
1. Prologue: Good Morning, Sakura

A Fractured Blossom, by Weebee.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Ranma ½. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go run from the Ninja lawyers and practitioners of martial arts law that are hunting me down as we speak.

Summary: We all know that Sakura Haruno's got some unusual mental issues, what with inner Sakura and all, but when a new mental voice shows up during her fight with Team Dosu, things go from awkward to just plain weird.

Timeline:Early season 2, and about six months after the end of the Ranma ½ Manga.

Note: Everyone seems to have a Naruto fic, right? Well, this is mine. I'm not terribly familiar with the series, and even worse, what I AM familiar with is the English dub of the Anime. I'm quite aware that this loses me points with the rabid fan-people. To be brutally rude and honest, deal with it or bite me.

Prologue: Good morning, Sakura.

The clearing in the middle of the forest of death was silent, save the ragged breaths of the Ninja, and the pained gasps of Rock Lee as his head threatened to explode from the sound wave attack that he'd just finished being assaulted by. This lasted for several seconds, as Sakura Haruno looked on in shock and Naruto and Sasuke lay, unmoving, until Dosu stepped forward, sneering.

"Now, just stay down while we take care of Uchiha." Stepping forward, he made the metal apparatus on his arm ready for use with a soft series of clicks, and Sakura moved, removing her Kunai from its spot at her waist and hurling it with all the strength she had.

The man responded quickly, merely raising his arm protector and deflecting the small knife with a clang before speaking. "I almost forgot about you completely." He admitted.

"You leave them alone!" Sakura proclaimed, her hand darting for her belt pouch and coming up with three shuriken, which she pitched swirling through the air. This time however, Dosu didn't move, Zaku darting in front of him and raising his arms to emit a strong gust of wind that knocked the bladed stars back at Sakura, who barely dodged to the side in time to be punched in the gut by Kin.

As the pink haired girl pitched over forward, Kin grabbed a hank of her long hair, yanking her head harshly. The younger Kunoichi had no choice but to sink to her knees, a sharp gasp coming to her lips as she desperately tried to regain the breath she'd just lost. "Hmph, pathetic." Kin spat, looking down at Sakura contemptuously. "You know, if you spent as much time on your fighting skills as you did on this silky hair of yours, you would have done much better."

Sakura didn't respond, now only able to look on as Dosu studied her teammates. "So, what do we do now? They're all incapacitated." The man commented, casually.

"How about we let this little beauty queen watch as Zaku finishes off her friend?" Kin suggested, tugging on Sakura's hair again.

Her two partners nodded, and the compressed air user started towards Sasuke as Sakura's left hand sank to the ground, its fingers drawing small furrows there as she tensed up. 'I… I can't believe it.' She thought, her eyes welling up with a single tear. 'I keep ending up on the sidelines during these fights, and the one time I'm the only line of defense between my team and death, I… I fail like this?' As she thought that, several images of her past battles flashed through her head.

She'd always thought herself one of the better Ninja in the class, despite her poor performance in physical activities. Her Jutsu skills were adequate, and she was at the top of the class in written assignments, but that had all not seemed to matter when she'd been put on a team, in the real world.

In the first test, she'd ended up tied to a tree, then she'd had to stand by helplessly during that whole mess with Zabuza and Haku. Now, she'd managed to get four shots off, all of which had done nothing, and then gotten immobilized almost effortlessly. She knew that the grasp the other woman had on her hair would slow her down, probably just enough to get her throat slit by a Kunai, if she tried to escape. 'It's hopeless.' She groaned, finding that more tears were following the first down her face.

HR.

"Wow, you're acting pathetic." A voice split through Sakura's depression, and she let her head rise to find that she wasn't being held anymore. Instead, she was standing in the middle of a dark chamber, the only illumination provided by three spotlights. Confused, she looked around only to see there were two figures present. One, which seemed strangely familiar, was like some black, shadowed version of herself, made entirely of outlines. It was scowling, and glancing between her and the other figure, who was a red haired girl about her own height, her hair tied into a pigtail.

"Who?" She asked, blinking.

"My name's not important right now." The other her said, shrugging, and continuing her glaring session.

"Aw, Kura-chan, ya wanna cut her some slack? She's pretty confused." The other figure said, and Sakura recognized it as the voice she'd first heard.

"For the last time, Saotome, do not call me that." 'Kura-chan' retorted, angrily. "And I thought you were the one who thought she was acting like a cry baby this time?"

'Saotome' snorted, and then grinned at Sakura slightly apologetically. "Doesn't change the fact that she's probably real confused." She answered. "Ta answer your question, I'm not sure who she is. As for me, I've been sittin in your head for the past twelve years, or so. Name's Ranma Saotome, sorry 'bout this."

"Twelve years? But that would be ever since I was born." Sakura said, confused. "I… think I've heard her before, but you…"

Saotome shook her head sadly. "Look, I'd like ta explain, but we're a bit short on time. Time here's a lot faster than it is outside, since we're pretty much talkin inside your head, but that guy's gunna kill Lover Boy and Naruto soon." Sakura noticed that the redhead's face scrunched into disgust when she mentioned lover boy, who she guessed was Sasuke, and blushed, both in embarrassment and annoyance.

"Fine then, what do you want?" She asked, deciding to cut to the chase.

Saotome sighed. "Look. Up 'till now, I've been willing ta let you live your life, and stay settled down in my little section of your brain. Mostly, that's cuz you're way too girly for me to keep myself from throwing up. Now, though, you're in a situation where you're probably gunna die and take two other people with ya, and as a martial artist I gotta interfere."

"Wait, you're offering to help me?" Sakura asked, letting the girlyness comment slide for the moment. At Saotome's nod, she started shaking her head. "I… I've hidden behind everyone else all the time already, and it's gotten me in this mess. I have to fight them myself." She resolved, gulping.

Saotome snorted again. "Normally, I'd agree with ya, and I admire you for sayin it." She said, seriously. "These guys, though, they're real tough. Not the best situation for yer first real battle, ya know?" Seeing that both Sakura and her inner shadow were looking ready to argue, she continued quickly. "I promise that if ya let me help this time, I'll teach ya all I know about the martial arts."

Sakura blinked, as if realizing that this person had never specified how she was going to help her until now. "All you know is more Taijutsu?" She asked, in disbelief. "How will that help?"

Saotome glared, as if her pride had just been injured, and Sakura's shadow gave her a look as if she'd just mentioned that the sky was bright pink. "Ya know that Lee kid?" The redhead growled, finally. "I'm like what'd happen if his Sensei had no morals whatsoever and had sixteen years ta mold him into the perfect fighter, 'n I've listened in to every Ninja lesson you ever took. I've even already got a few strategies cooked up ta help against those idiots out there. Trust me, I'm better off in combat than you."

Sakura thought for a moment, then nodded. She really didn't have any other choice, after all. "Fine, but what do you want in return?" She demanded, her eyes narrowed.

"Look, all I want is ta keep you, and therefore me, alive along with your friends if I can pull it off." The redhead admitted. "Now, that guy with the tubes in his arms is almost at that Uchiha guy, so if you'll excuse me."

"That's Sasuke-kun!" Sakura exclaimed, but then stepped forward, taking the redhead's hand.

The last thing she heard before the world went white was "Whatever."

HR.

When Sakura's eyesight cleared again, she found that her body was already moving. She tried to look around, but it seemed almost like there was someone else behind her eyes, and she was some sort of spectator. Deciding that this must be the help that Saotome offered, she watched nervously as her body jerked itself forward, and she felt several follicles rip free of her scalp. Still this did get her out of Kin's grasp, and as the Sound Ninja tried to react to this development, the small pink haired girl's right foot lifted, moving backwards in a mule kick that connected with her knee, breaking it with a loud crack.

Wincing, the girl thought that she wouldn't usually use such brutal force, but the other Ninja would likely try and do worse if she wasn't immobilized, and this was a life or death battle. As Kin fell to the ground, screaming with the sudden pain of a shattered knee, Sakura pushed off the ground with one arm, dashing forward more quickly than she ever had before.

Just as Zaku was raising a Kunai to plunge into Sasuke Uchiha's heart, a red blur impacted, her left elbow smashing into his head as her right hand snatched the knife away, chucking it into a tree limb up to the hilt. Her danger sense flaring, the Kunoichi rolled away as Dosu's chakra guided sound waves passed through the air where her head had once been. Rolling to her feet, Ranma Saotome cursed her body for being far too out of shape as she tried to catch her breath.

'Hey, I train every day!' Sakura's mental voice echoed, irritated.

'Not nearly enough, now be quiet.' Ranma returned, taking up a defensive stance.

"I see, so you want to play using Taijutsu too, do you girl?" Dosu said, bringing his arm up to his side. "Just like your friend, you must know that I can disorient you before you can start to fight, making it impossible for you to stand."

The pink haired girl shrugged, giving the Sound Nin an irritating smirk. "Y'know, I gotta ask. Why do all you idiots explain yer moves to your enemies while you're fighting 'em?" She asked, causing the others in the clearing to be taken aback by the change in her speech patterns. Seeing that there was no response, she continued.

"Well, for once I'm gunna try it, see why it's so appealing. All I'm gunna say, though…" She started, as she moved one hand down to the hem of her dress, "is that I found a way past yer technique, and all because you explained it to me." In one smooth motion, she tore a large strip of her clothing off, then tore this in half, ignoring the protests of Sakura in her head. Rolling the fabric slightly, she jammed it into her ears, then secured it there with her Ninja headband.

Dosu smirked, not seeming bothered, and aimed his arm at his opponent. Sure enough, when he created his attack, she didn't even tremble. "Hmm, it looks like you're right." He conceded, moving into a stance himself. "That was pretty stupid of me." Not seeming to be bothered at all, the Sound Nin charged in on the attack, his two companions following.

Nearby, where they were hiding, Team 10 watched on, surprised. Even Shikamaru had let an expression of shock pass his face for a brief moment, before covering it again with a mutter. "How's Sakura doing that?" Choji exclaimed, excitedly. "I thought she was finished there, for sure!"

"So did I." Shikamaru replied. "Yamanaka, Haruno used to be your friend, did you know she could do this?"

Ino shook her head, having trouble not gaping as her old friend and current rival somersaulted over Zaku Abumi's wind cutter attack, allowing it to slam into Kin Tsuchi, who had just managed to work herself past the pain in her knee and was trying to get back into the fight. "She never showed me any of this!"

Granted, Ninja weren't supposed to advertise special techniques, but this kind of training was something that Sakura would have had to practice for her entire life, and the two had been good friends for a long time. Plus, Ino had no idea where she would have learned it, since she came from a civilian family.

"Well, this does mean we won't have to help her." Shikamaru said, leaning back slightly. "That would have been quite troublesome."

Choji nodded, laughing nervously, before Ino clubbed him in the back of the head with her hand.

HR.

Back in the fight, Ranma winced as yet another sound cutter attack swung past her, slashing another part of the damned annoying dress. She wasn't really worried about the thing, but Sakura's angry yells were starting to give her a headache. The worst part was that the air pressure user, who had recovered shortly after realizing that she'd blindsided him and quickly joined the fight, wasn't her most dangerous opponent.

Dosu was still perfectly good at Ninjutsu without the advantage of his fancy toy, and for some reason he'd kept trying to get close and punch her, something she wasn't ready to allow, especially given Sakura's body's relatively frail state. Frowning, she started dodging, and allowed her mind to drift for a moment.

'I can't believe it, she's destroying my clothes and constantly insulting my skills, I mean she is protecting the others, but she's so obnoxious!' Sakura was complaining, as Ranma focused in on her voice.

'You know I can hear you, right?' the martial artist drawled, causing Sakura to quiet down, and a distinct sensation of embarrassment to wash over her mind. 'Look, I'm havin a bit of trouble here, and I wanted ta ask you something.'

'I thought you said you knew all of my Jutsu?' Sakura returned, sounding both insulting and worried.

Ranma didn't directly respond to that, but the next time she wanted to dodge, she concentrated for a moment, and then disappeared in a poof, the replacement jutsu moving a rock into the way of Dosu's hammer blow. 'No, I wanted to ask for permission to go full out.' The currently dominant personality explained. 'I can go faster, and be stronger, but yer not conditioned for the amount of Chi I would need ta use to do it, and it's gunna damage your body.'

'Damage my body?' Sakura asked, nervously. 'How much?'

'Nothin permanent… I hope.' The martial artist explained. 'Just a lot of pulled muscles, maybe some bruised or cracked bones, depending on what I do. Trust me, you'll be sore.'

Sakura considered objecting, until one of Dosu's punches connected, and both of them were rattled. It seemed as though the vibration from the blow shot through their bones, and continued for far longer than either expected. Flying back, and teeth still rattling from the blow, Ranma just barely managed to bounce off of the tree she was heading for at break-neck speed, bouncing to her feet. "What the hell was that?" The Kunoichi exclaimed, indignantly, not really paying attention as the ear-plugs fell from her ears.

"As I said, sound is Vibration." Dosu said, smugly. "So I can cause you great damage simply by striking you, thanks to my melody arm."

"Gee, thanks." Ranma said, sarcastically, running forward and landing a hard kick across the guys face. "Now what'd I tell ya about explaining techniques, idiot?" Jumping back while the man recovered, she turned inward again. 'Well?' she asked.

'Do it." Sakura replied, still feeling her teeth ache slightly from the vibration attack, and knowing that Ranma was having trouble keeping on her feet, due to the nausea building in her stomach.

The pink haired Kunoichi nodded, confusing everyone in the clearing, and then blurred into movement more quick than any that had been made before, ignoring as her legs sent signals of burning pain from the exertion. Jumping at a now fully recovered Dosu, she moved both arms as if they were connected to pistons, driving them into his right arm with a rapid, and loud, repeating bang. None of the Ninja there had heard a machine gun, but if they had they would have made the comparison instantly.

As she sprang back and landed, the pink haired girl smirked. Dosu was about to ask what she thought she'd accomplished, when he realized that his melody arm had more cracks in it than it had once had. As he watched, the thing fell from his forearm, shattering as it reached the ground.

"How dare you?" The Sound Ninja roared, his face twisting in anger for the first time in the fight, though some fear could be seen there as well.

"I dare 'cuz I'm the best." Ranma replied, a cocky smirk dominating her face, as she did her best to ignore her throbbing fists. Still, this battle had been all but won, as Dosu looked tired, as well as angry, and Zaku would be easy enough to take out if fought on his own. Cupping her hand, she channeled some of her blue Chi into it, launching it at her primary opponent with a cry of "Moko Takabisha!".

HR.

Nearby, all three members of team 10 blinked again. "Did she just do that without a Jutsu?" Choji asked, panicking.

Before anyone could respond, two soft thumps were heard behind the group, and a new voice butted in. "Is this a private show, or can we join you?" Neji Hyuga drawled, his byakugan fully active and the veins around his eyes bulging.

All three of the Ninja who were already there felt rather sheepish for letting the others sneak up on them, but Ino shielded this sheepishness by asking a question. "Neji, why are you guys here?"

"We're looking for Lee." The boy responded, "And I see him over there, but," He continued, raising his hand as Tenten tried to run past him, "I think we should get a bit more data on this fight before rushing in."

Tenten nodded and waited as her partner peered over the bushes with the others. For herself, all she saw was Sakura, her uniform ripped to shreds, squaring off against two sound Ninja, a third laying against a tree and knocked silly. Also, Naruto and Sasuke were laying under a tree, Lee sprawled nearby. Worried, she finally asked, "What do you see?"

Neji's eyes narrowed for a moment. "There's something wrong with Haruno's chakra, for one." He started. "It's like she's using her stamina before combining it with her mental energy, which I've never seen before."

The others gasped, as it was very rare indeed to hear the Hyuga branch house member admit that he hadn't seen something before, but Neji ignored them as he continued. "Also she's torn over a dozen muscles in her arms and legs, as well as breaking several bones in her fingers."

"So… what do we do?" Choji asked, nervously.

Neji was about to respond, when his eyes widened in visible surprise, and all hell broke loose.

HR.

'How did you do that without hand seals?' Sakura gasped, but Ranma only smirked, though she was heavily panting. Dosu had been thrown into a tree, which looked like it was going to keep him pinned for a while, and she turned to Zaku.

"I'll tell ya later." The pink haired girl muttered, forgetting to simply think for the moment, and then spoke louder. "So, how about ya give us yer scroll and take off?"

"Not on your life!" Zaku snarled, and raised his arms. Ranma started towards him, accelerating as quickly as she could, but wasn't quite fast enough. "Super-sonic wind cutter!" He screamed, and a blast about as powerful as a Hiryu Shoten Ha smashed into the Kunoichi. Even Ranma's adaptability wasn't quite enough to counter this, and she found herself lifted into the air, her hands held desperately in front of her body to keep the chakra sharpened wind from impacting her torso or head.

After slamming into a tree of her own, and feeling that she'd sunk in about a foot, the martial artist groaned, and started coughing up blood. "Okay, that hurt." She muttered, and could hear Sakura's mental voice screaming in pain within her head.

Prying herself out of the hole, she fell forward, and ended up holding herself just above Naruto Uzumaki's body. "Oh, Sakura-chan, I'll save you!" The blonde boy said, with a happy grin, and then promptly rolled over in his sleep. Then, another sound came, that of someone groaning and moving nearby.

Looking, Ranma and Sakura gasped in unison as Sasuke's head rose, quickly followed by him propping himself up on his arms and forcibly rising to his feet. Almost instantly afterwards, a column of purple and black energy exploded around the last remaining loyal Uchiha, and his skin began to take on patches of modeled black. Unfortunately, the two didn't have much time to observe these changes, as the force of the aura knocked Ranma backwards, landing on her back.

Growling, the martial artist hauled herself to her own feet, and studied Sasuke for a moment. She knew who he was, as she sat in a lot of Sakura's classes, and if the martial artist wanted to learn anything about chakra she had to put up with the girl's constant mooning at him, but what she saw now shocked her.

Extending her chi sense and her learned ability to sense chakra at the same time, she gulped, and kept the bile from entering her mouth only through force of will. "That… that's the darkest aura I've felt in a while." She muttered, eyes wide.

Since Sakura was sharing a mind with the martial artist, she'd felt all of the same sensations, and had to agree. 'Sasuke, what's happened to you?' She thought.

"You want it Sasuke, you want power, don't you?" If she'd had control of her body at the moment, the pink haired girl would have shuddered. She didn't want to remember that, especially not now.

"Sasuke, what the hell's wrong with you?" Ranma managed to say, giving voice to Sakura's words slightly less eloquently than she would have liked.

The last Uchiha turned to the voice, and one eye widened as he saw Sakura, favoring one side and with a steady stream of blood running down from a broken nose. "Sakura?" He asked, "who did this to you?"

"That doesn't matter," Ranma said. "What happened to you, and why's yer chakra feel so… evil?"

Sasuke laughed, almost sounding manic as he spoke. "I'm fine, Sakura." He explained. "This is the gift HE gave to me! I need power, to avenge my family, and I don't care if I have to sell my soul to get it!"

'To avenge… his family?' Sakura thought, as Ranma's eyes narrowed.

She really didn't like talk like that. It sounded far too much like some of the stuff she'd heard from people who abused their power, but before she could say anything, Sasuke spoke again. "Now, tell me, which of these people hurt you?"

"Hehehe, worried about your girlfriend, eh?" Zaku sneered, not noticing that his leader, who was still half dazed from Ranma's last Chi attack, was looking horrified behind him. "Well, I'm the one who caused her all that pain. What're you going to do about it?"

Sasuke didn't respond, only moving in a blur. The Sound Nin tried to get off an attack, but was too slow as Sasuke dodged his wind cutter, getting off a phoenix flower jutsu to distract him before getting behind him and dislocating his arms.

Ranma frowned as the man screamed in agony. 'He could have just knocked him out.' She thought. 'If he's not going for killing blows, there's no need for torture like this.' Sasuke didn't seem to hear this, since as Zaku fell, he turned towards the sound team's leader, who was backing up and raising his hands. Even though he tried to hide it, Dosu was scared, for some reason, and looked ready to give in, though Sasuke didn't seem to care, starting to walk towards him casually.

"No way!" Ranma roared, knowing that the black haired boy would likely kill or maim this person as well. As she got closer to Sasuke, and was about to raise her hand for a knock-out blow, she felt a lurching, tugging sensation and Sakura regained control, stumbling forward and throwing her arms around the boy's body. "Sasuke, stop!" She cried, desperately, and surprisingly, he did.

HR.

In the pink haired girl's mind, Ranma and her inner self watched the scene play out, as Dosu begged Sasuke for his life, and offered his scroll. "Well, it looks like they're safe." The redhead grumbled.

"You don't exactly sound pleased." Inner Sakura said, and by the look on her face, neither was she.

"I had them almost entirely beat, and even if they don't know about me, it was YOUR body that did all the fighting, and now this freak's bowing to Uchiha to spare his life when all he did was use excessive force." The redhead ranted, getting an annoyed look from Inner Sakura.

"Hey, I like Sasuke-kun." She pouted.

"Yeah, but you agree with me." The martial artist responded, then looked out at the world again, as Sakura started to try and wake Naruto. "Still, that aura I felt around the Uchiha has me worried. Felt worse than Ryoga on his worst day, almost like…" She shook her head, and then started walking into the shadows.

"Hey, where are you going?" Inner Sakura asked, irritated.

"Back to where I don't have to see her fawn over some guy." Ranma returned.

"But, now that she knows you're here, she's going to want to talk to you at some point." Inner Sakura explained, impatiently.

"Don't worry, I'm not going that far back." Ranma returned, then smirked. "It's almost like you're worried about bein lonely up here."

"Ah, just get lost!" Inner Sakura yelled, and turned away with a huff.

END.

Okay, yes, this is my obligatory Ranma/Naruto crossover. I know this kind of thing's been done a lot before, but I did it this way because I thought it would be funny. As for how Ranma got in there, that… is a secret! No, actually, it's not. Sakura will extract the story from Ranma for you nice people at some point, I'm sure.

Please note that, while this is not in the vault, I can't see myself updating it that often. I wrote it in a haze while I was supposed to write something else, so… yeah.

Please don't kill me.


	2. Chapter 1: Good Night, Sakura

Note: There's a big note at the end of the fic, but for now I'll just say that I hope you enjoy yourselves, and please R&R!

Oh, special thanks to Karibanu for the revised nickname for Inner Sakura.

Chapter 1, Good Night, Sakura.

The members of Teams 7, 9 and 10 stood, slouched or sprawled around the clearing where Sakura and Sasuke had driven off the three Sound Ninja, several of them tending to the injured. "I can't believe you were such an idiot, Lee!" Tenten screamed, shaking her teammate until soft rattling sounds could be heard from his form.

Nearby, Sakura was looking on in concern as Sasuke sat on the ground, his head slumped against his chest. He hadn't spoken since the end of the battle, and she was starting to get worried about him, even if it'd only been about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, she was also getting a little worried about herself, as her arms and legs had started to dully throb a few minutes before, and it had only gotten worse. As she was wincing and reaching up with one hand to rub her arm, the pink haired girl heard the panicked sound of Naruto Uzumaki yelling.

"Sakura, what happened here? What happened to you, something serious is wrong, and where's that creepy snake ninja, we gotta…" The orange jump suited boy babbled, charging for his teammates and trying to look around at the same time.

"Naruto, would you shut up?" The girl hissed, slightly more irritably than she intended, as the boy did genuinely seem worried about her.

"Oh…" Naruto said, turning a little bit to one side, as Shikamaru and Choji walked up to the two.

"You know, explaining all this to Uzumaki is going to be a real drag." The lazy boy drawled, rubbing his chin.

"Well, you could do that instead of waiting in the bushes for the entire battle." Sakura grumbled.

"Hey, it looked like you didn't have any trouble with them. Why didn't you tell me you knew techniques like that, forehead?" Ino broke in, from where she was standing nearby and trying to look uninterested.

"Don't call me that, Ino-pig!" Sakura started, rising to her feet in a surge of anger… before keeling over and screaming in pain.

Several feet away, where he was still being shaken silly by Tenten, Lee's head snapped up, and he seemed to regain his composure. Brushing the black haired girl's hands from around his shoulders, he rushed over to Sakura, kneeling to the grass. Looking her over, he winced. "Oh, Sakura, I failed to protect you, and now you are hurt! For this failure, I will run around the village 300 times… while carrying the rest of my team… and a fruit cart, and if I can't do that…"

"Um, no… it's fine." Sakura said, though her eyes were watering for some reason.

"Oh, you're injuries are so severe that you're crying? I have truly failed." The green clad Ninja said, starting to blubber himself.

Nearby, where he and Choji were still looking on, Shikamaru sighed in exasperation. "Lee, that could be because you're crushing her broken fingers."

Lee's eyes widened, and he started bowing profusely, saying "I'm sorry" over and over again. This was, of course, until Tenten walked up behind him, slipping a scroll into one of the pockets on her Ninja vest and jabbing a syringe into the side of his neck.

"Hey, what happened to bushy brows?" Naruto asked, poking the other boy's unmoving body with his foot.

Tenten shrugged. "Special anesthetic. Should keep him out for about four hours." She replied, then looked worriedly at Sakura, who was still whimpering slightly. "You want some?"

The pink haired girl was very tempted, but knew that her team had to keep going, and she didn't want to be a liability again. Unfortunately, when she tried to push herself to her feet, she didn't get more than a few inches off the ground before her muscles protested mightily again, and she fell on her face. "Hey, Sakura, if you can't walk I'll carry you!" Naruto chirped, looking down on the girl worriedly, though with a slight trace of a goofy grin.

"No way in…" Sakura tried to say, but all that came out was a muffled grumbling, as her face was still in the ground, and before she could role over she felt a pin prick in her posterior. "I hate you all." She muttered, as she fell unconscious.

HR.

When the darkness cleared from Sakura's vision, she found that the pain in her entire body had dissipated. For a moment, she thought about jumping up and down to celebrate her newly regained mobility, but shook the idea off as stupid. Taking a moment to take in her surroundings, she saw that she was in the same black void as she had been when she'd talked to the shadowed version of herself and that annoying red haired girl, though now two of the spotlights were out.

Stepping forward slowly, she noted that her feet made no sound as she walked over the hard floor, and the place seemed almost creepily silent. "Hey, is someone in here?" She asked, somewhat nervously, but her voice seemed to deaden within a few moments.

Feeling panic rising inside of her, but forcibly suppressing it with the training she'd previously gotten as a Kunoichi, the pink haired girl only increased her pace slightly, and walked for several minutes before abruptly leaving the darkness. It wasn't as if she'd walked through a door into a lighted place, or even as if the roof of a building had opened to sky, but one moment she was in shadowed darkness, and the next she was walking down a street that looked like it was somewhere in the middle of Konoha.

Most of the buildings seemed to be featureless husks, aside from three that were looming ahead of her now. One was her home, just as she'd remembered leaving it last. She thought of going in and checking the place out, but what was next to it drew her eye first. The Academy was standing there, at least half a mile from where it was supposed to be, and next to that was a structure she'd never seen before, though it sort of resembled the training hall at the school, but a lot more battle damaged.

Curiously, she moved towards the new structure, pushing the sliding door aside. Inside, she saw one of the strangest things she had seen in a while. It didn't look like the inside of any building she'd ever seen, especially since there was apparently an ornamental Koi pond in the middle of the wooden floor, a single bamboo pole sticking out of its center.

Around the walls were several tattered looking scrolls, with names such as "Amaguriken," "Puppy Eyes Technique," And "Anything Goes Distraction." On the far side of the 'room,' she saw a large, heavily bound chest and another door, this one made of chain link, though its latch was covered in more locks than she'd ever seen in her life. In its center, it carried a sign that said "Beware of furry hell beast who wants to rip out your soul and use it as a ball of yarn."

Though she was still rather curious, she really didn't want to mess with such an explicitly worded sign, so she moved over to the chest, poking at its lock. "Don't touch that!" Snapped an irritated voice that Sakura recognized all too well.

Spinning, she saw the redhead who had called herself Ranma, leaning against the sliding door into the room. "Didn't think ya'd be here this fast." She said, casually.

"Well, you didn't tell me that 'you'll be sore' meant I wouldn't be able to move at all after the battle." Sakura replied, angrily.

"Oh, yeah." The redhead replied, sheepishly. "Kinda forgot your pain tolerance is pretty low." Seeing Sakura's eyebrow twitch at this insult, she hurried on. "I mean, it's low compared ta someone who's used ta taking a real beating."

Sakura's eyebrow twitched again, harder this time, and an exasperated voice floated in from behind the redhead. "I see you're screwing up with her as bad as you did with me." The shadow Sakura said, stepping in past Ranma. "Look, she's a jerk, but she means well."

"Hey!" Ranma objected, indignantly.

Sakura rubbed her forehead, noting that the other two had gotten into a small glaring match, and spoke. "Okay, fine. So where are we right now?"

The darker Sakura just shrugged, pulling a Kunai out and balancing it on her finger as she leaned back, and Ranma realized that it was probably still her turn to speak. "Well, near as I can figure it, we're in your mindscape. Sorta like what the Yamanaka Techniques are supposed ta let you go into if you want." She answered.

"And I've got a beaten up training hall and a 'Furry Hell Beast' inside of my mind?" Sakura asked, gesturing around her.

"They've been here ever since I can remember, but usually the jock here's the only one using this place." Her shadowed self chipped in, shrugging, and earning an indignant look from the redhead. "I usually hang around the school, and I think our home's supposed to be your place, which really annoys me, by the way, because the bed in the nurse's office is uncomfortable!"

Sakura nodded slightly numbly, and moved over to a wall to lean against it. At the moment she was a little overwhelmed, but there was one question that was bubbling to the top of her mind. "And how did you people and all this extra stuff get into my head?"

"She just showed up one day." Ranma explained. "Or, well, I guess she sorta faded in over time, but she wasn't always here. As for me, I've been here as long as you've been alive, I think."

"And you've only shown yourself now?" Sakura asked, feeling vaguely creeped out.

Ranma shrugged. "For the most part, I wanted ta let you live your life." She answered, simply. "I mean, for the first little while, I was all burstin ta find a way out, but the piece and quiet in here was kinda nice, 'n I started to realize that you were growin up half-way normal." She smiled apologetically. "If it helps, about all I looked out for was your Ninjutsu classes, and making sure you didn't get yourself killed."

"Oh.'" Sakura said, not sure if she was supposed to be grateful that someone was watching out for her, angry that she thought she couldn't take care of herself, or disconcerted, still. "But… how did you GET in here?" She finally asked.

Ranma sighed. "It's a bit hard ta explain." She muttered, and the darker Sakura snorted.

"Why don't you just do the same thing you did to show me?" She asked.

"That wasn't really pleasant for you." Ranma replied, but the darker Sakura shrugged.

"What's she talking about?" Sakura asked, blinking in confusion.

"I ain't good at explaining this sorta thing, so I can just share the memory of what happened. I've done it before, but it's not really a pleasant one." Ranma explained.

"Let me guess, it's going to hurt?" Sakura asked.

Ranma shook her head. "Not after its over, no. It's just kinda strange feelin yourself die, apparently."

Sakura shuddered, but then nodded. "I want answers." She said, resolutely.

"All right, it'll keep me from havin ta explain some other stuff, too. Just be ready." Ranma said, then closed her eyes. For a moment, she began to glow with a blue aura, and Sakura's vision filled with the flash of energy.

Abruptly, the young Kunoichi felt an odd sensation, as if she were somehow growing, and when the light receded, he was standing in the middle of a room much like the one he'd left, though this one didn't have the strange pond, door or chest. As he walked, he realized something was off about his stride, but when he tried to change it he found that he couldn't.

As his vision suddenly tilted down, he realized what was off. The body he could see was toned, muscular and a few years older than his own. At the same time, it was very much male, clad in a strange silk shirt that looked like an import from one of the other elemental countries, as well as a pair of black pants and some cloth shoes that would likely work much better for stealth than a Ninja's traditional sandals, but be a lot harder on the feet.

"Son in law, are you sure that you wish to do this?" A voice said, causing the young martial artist to raise his head. On the other end of the room, a being sat that reminded Sakura of nothing so much as a troll.

"I'm sure, ol' ghoul." Sakura found himself saying, as he sank into a taijutsu stance. "Mousse told me 'bout this challenge duel thing, and said if I beat ya, I could have the marriage annulled, so here I am."

The 'ol ghoul' sighed. "Boy, you should just give in. You know that you're a hundred years too early to defeat me in combat, and I'll have to use very painful moves to subdue you." Her face, as hard as it was to read, seemed to show genuine concern as she gazed into Sakura's eyes, but the Ninja could feel a sense of resolve straightening his back.

For a moment, he looked over to the side of the room, where a group of people were sitting. Immediately, he recognized them as his family, his mother standing next to the stupid Panda, who was holding up a "Go Ranma!" sign, while Kasumi watched on in worry nearby, comforting her father. Next to her, Nabiki lounged, casually pointing a camera in his general direction, and Akane was doing her damnedest to look casual while stealing the occasional glance.

Distantly, he wondered where the other Amazons were, before returning his gaze to the ghoul. "You know what I want, now are we gunna start this, or not?" He snapped. "I'm tired of you and your great grand daughter. With the last stunt you tried ta pull, this has ta end now."

The old ghoul sighed, then nodded. "As an elder of the Amazon Tribe, I hear this outsider male's challenge, and I answer it. The battle shall continue until one of the accepted ends has been reached. Male, are you prepared?" She asked.

Sakura felt himself nod, and his opponent was off like a shot before the action was complete. He wasn't surprised, both as a Ninja and as a student of Anything Goes, at this tactic, and brought up his arm to deflect a stinging blow with the staff the older woman had been riding on. He brought his leg around for a high kick, but Cologne moved out of its way with a liquid grace that also characterized Ranma's own fighting style.

Bounding backwards, the red shirted martial artist got some distance, calculating the elder's arc as she bounded after him, and his eyes widened as several small needles flew towards him. Using the speed gifted to him by the Amaguriken training, he plucked them out of the air, though one stung his finger and made it go numb. "Paralysis Toxin." He grunted, flicking his hand disgustedly. Cologne wanted to end this fight quickly, and she was going for as many dirty tricks as she could right off the bat. "If ya wanna play that way," he growled, cupping one hand and firing a small bolt of energy into her airborne frame that she wasn't quite fast enough to get out of the way of.

The battles first few steps were all like this, incredibly fast, sneaky attacks that were always countered on one side or the other, and Sakura was both expecting, and surprised by every permutation of the battle. As he deflected a pressure point blow worthy of the Hyuuga family with a simple knife edge chop, then countered with a foot stomp that would have broken bones if it had connected, he realized that this fight was far beyond the level of a normal Genin, maybe even at the level of some of the more advanced special Jounin that he'd seen fight, which, admittedly, hadn't been very many.

It was a good thing that Sakura wasn't, in fact, controlling the actions of his own body at the moment, or he would have completely missed his opponent's next set of blurring attacks. Even so, one had managed to connect, and it had been invested with quite a lot of force. Wincing as he was thrown through the front wall of the Dojo, he was actually kind of relieved. Cologne was burning through a lot of her energy to try and defeat him quickly, and the battle had just been moved farther away from innocent bystanders.

Bouncing off of one of the rocks by the pond, the martial artist quickly threw a glance at the water, but shook his head. His curse would make him much faster, but he doubted the speed would quite make up for the loss of endurance and mass in this particular fight, at least not yet. Sakura wasn't really sure what that train of thought had meant, as it had come through as if a simple reference to a curse contained much more meaning than he'd gotten out of it, but still watched with a combination of interest, trepidation and awe as Cologne burst through the hole she'd just used Sakura's body to make, her staff outstretched.

The end of the staff blurred, and Sakura's hands did so as well, though it seemed that Cologne could see the barely there patterns in Sakura's strikes, as not only did she block every blow, but get strikes through. As they hit his body, Sakura let out a pulse of his blue confidence energy, warding off the tip from hitting the points it was aiming for. Still, it left deep gouges in his skin where it impacted, and the charge of Chi built up at its tip ran through his body like an electric current.

Snapping up a blindingly fast kick with his left foot, Sakura made contact with the Amazon elder's ribs, hearing a solid crack as she flew backwards, digging up a furrow in the ground through her sheer force, but she bounced to her feet as though this hadn't effected her. Sakura knew this was a lie, however, as the constant battle analysis that was running through his head told him that her aura was starting to dim, the constant hard strikes taking their toll on the several hundred year old matriarch. This, however, wasn't a good thing, as Cologne was now going to direct even more of her effort towards sneak attacks, and Sakura knew that he didn't have the level of experience yet to anticipate them all.

Smirking shakily, he decided to do what he did best, and improvise. "So, you've been holdin back a lot, ol' ghoul." He said, conversationally, trying to keep the ragged panting out of his voice.

"You as well, Son in Law." Cologne returned. "When they told me that you had destroyed the king of Phoenix Mountain, I had thought that they were joking. Now, I know that you will be a very powerful acquisition for the tribe."

"Like hell." Sakura vowed, recalling that the only reason he was in this fight was for having defeated Shampoo in combat, and not knowing the laws. Truthfully, Sakura could see the benefits in killing outsider females who had defeated Amazon warriors, as they could possibly bring back the village's secrets to their enemies, but the whole husband thing mystified him. It would be like allowing random Missing Nin who defeated a Genin into Konoha, for little apparent reason.

"Your resistance is useless, Ranma." Cologne said, wearily. "I must bring you back to the village. Just give up this foolishness."

Sakura didn't respond, but did move his hand upward quickly, catching yet another poisoned needle that Cologne had thrown while trying to disguise her actions. 'She's getting as underhanded as my old man,' The martial artist thought, then charged in without a word.

The battle continued, leaving the Tendo Dojo, for quite a while after this last exchange, and Sakura was finally able to understand what the curse was. While they were fighting on a bridge, and Cologne was starting to get really desperate, he'd lost his footing, plummeting into the water. What Sakura didn't understand was the sense of satisfaction that came with the annoyance, as she suddenly felt her body shift, and then her foot landed on the sloping inner surface of the canal, propelling herself back upwards. When the water was broken and the wind hit her again, she realized at least some of what had happened, as red hair, the same shade as Ranma's had been in her mind, was swept away from her eyes.

"Didn't wanna have to resort to the curse in this fight." She muttered, but didn't let it bother her as she revised her battle plan. Fortunately, she had bled off enough of Cologne's energy earlier that her lack of stamina wouldn't be quite as much of a handicap anymore, and the change had actually made her slightly less tired, at least for the moment. Plus, her added speed would make it easier for her to dodge most of the ghoul's worse tricks.

Unfortunately, Cologne seemed to realize this too, as she was frowning darkly. As Sakura landed back on the street, taking up a defensive stance, Cologne spoke. "Do you have any idea what would happen if Shampoo failed to bring you home?" She asked. Sakura shrugged, so she continued. "She would be executed, for failing in a second quest of honor."

For a moment, Sakura flinched, and that was all Cologne needed to pitch her staff forward, hard. The pigtailed girl rolled out of its way, bouncing back to her feet, and glared at the old woman. "Yeah, and I should care, why?" She sneered, though she didn't really believe the statement. Still, it seemed to get Cologne's attention, as she stopped for a moment with her eyes wide. "She tried ta kill me for months, then went after Akane, Ukyo and even Kodachi after the wedding." She snorted. "Yeah, she was getting desperate, but a martial artist doesn't kill others just 'ta keep herself alive. I'm real sorry ta hear she's gunna die, but she shoulda told me that before tryin ta take the others out."

Cologne scowled. She hadn't, apparently, expected an answer that calm. Then, her eyes widened as she noted an aura of soft blue that was emanating from her opponent. "Soul of ice?" She asked. "You dare to use more of our art against us?"

Sakura snorted, wondering when the old woman was going to get on with the actual match rather than this stupid psychological warfare. She knew that it would only be a short time before she had too little Chi to really fight, and then Sakura would win, without having to worry about really hurting the old woman. At the same time, she distantly wondered why she felt so calm.

Finally, Cologne seemed to make a decision, and reached into her robe for something. Withdrawing it, Sakura saw that it was a scroll. At once, she both recognized it and had no idea what was going on. It was some sort of summoning scroll, but as the woman unfurled it, she saw oddly formed seals, examples of the sealer's art that was so far beyond a fresh academy student like her that it may as well have been the Yondaime's research notes.

The red haired girl surged forward, but the part of her mind that was Sakura Haruno, simply watching this, knew things were too far gone already as the old woman cut her finger open with a small knife, dropping a single drop of blood onto the scroll and slamming it to the ground.

She knew that wasn't the right method of summoning anything, but it seemed to work as the woman was engulfed in a red aura. Again, her experience was fracturing, as she both recognized the aura as Chakra of some sort, and had no idea what it was. Jumping backwards nervously, she concentrated a blast of confidence Chi into one hand, and released it at her opponent. To her shock, the red aura seemed to engulf it, and when it cleared, Cologne was looking fully healed and ready for more.

"Give up, Son in Law." The elder growled, but her voice seemed slightly deeper now, almost feral. "I am at full strength, and you have been through an entire battle. Please, do not continue this."

Sakura smirked, though she knew the elder was right, and fell into a stance, waiting for the other to make the first move. When it came, it was blindingly fast, faster than Cologne had ever gone before, and left after-images even to her trained senses.

Pain exploded in her chest, as she slammed backwards and through several walls. She knew that she'd just gotten at least two more broken ribs, but didn't care as she forced herself up. She would not go back to the village with Cologne and Shampoo. What the younger had done earlier this month, which had left Ukyo with wounds on her face and body that the doctors said would definitely scar, plus what Cologne said her own culture would do to someone who only failed twice spurred her on.

She paid no attention to her protesting muscles, walking out of the wreckage and glaring at the elder, hard. "I don't know how you did this, but you're not gunna win." She slurred, tiredly.

"There is something Mousse didn't tell you about what happens when an outsider challenges an elder." Cologne said, calmly. "He no doubt didn't care, as he knew your stubbornness much more than even I realize… but Son in Law, no outsider is permitted to defeat an Amazon elder. We are simply not allowed, by law, to be defeated and ALL force is to be used to ensure this. The technique I just used will ensure that I cannot lose, but I cannot control the force I strike with nearly as well. Son in Law, if you do not forfeit now, I will most likely kill you." She explained, actually looking sad.

Ranma smirked, shakily, as a small trickle of blood started running between her lips. "What was it that old American guy said, Washington or something? Gimme freedom, or gimme death, right?"

Cologne roared in frustrated anger, charging at the other martial artist with her body burning with red Chakra. For a moment, Ranma saw that there were several streams of it waving behind her, like hair, or tails. Uncaring, she revealed one of her trump cards, and flicked her sleeves to send four of the poisoned needles Cologne had thrown earlier spiraling directly at her opponent.

This strike was lethal, and fully meant to be, as the small metal objects flew straight into, and through, both of Cologne's eyes. The elder bellowed again, this time the bestial rage seeming to overcome her completely, and did not go down in spite of the several bits of metal that were lodged in her brain through her eye sockets.

Sakura smirked, not really having expected her last ditch desperation move to work, and prepared for the onslaught. When it came, it was fast, brutal and ruthless. Her legs were broken in two places with a set of kicks, followed by the complete removal of her right arm. When the staff slammed through her heart and buried itself up to the hilt, she'd gone past the point where pain even mattered to her, and sank to the ground, the wooden pole that was stuck through her propping her up into a half sitting pose.

She knew enough biology to know that she wasn't going to die instantly from a shot to the heart, at least not until her brain was starved of oxygen, and slowly looked up to where she saw Cologne hunched nearby. The old woman trembled once, then fell forward, her body going still. "Sorry, ol' ghoul. had to be done." Ranma whispered.

As the redhead felt her body going numb around her, she looked up, and could have sworn she saw something. Her eyes were beginning to blur, but it was like a silhouette of a creature, its shape indistinct, and its body wreathed in red flame. 'I must be hallucinating.' She thought, before her eyes closed, and she felt her life leave her.

It was a curious feeling, something unlike any she'd ever felt before. First, she was moving slowly, and for a moment she got a glimpse of her own body, then, something seemed to latch onto her and start pulling. She couldn't really 'see' anything, but she felt the world blurring around her, until she was enclosed in a bright, white light.

HR.

"After that, I woke up here." Ranma said, as Sakura blinked her eyes clear. If she'd had a stomach at the moment, it would have been roiling with the conflicting sensations she'd felt, but as it was she just sank to her knees.

"Strange, isn't it?" The other her quipped, shortly.

Sakura nodded, shakily. She had so many questions running through her head, even though some of them had been answered by the scene she'd just seen. "I… never saw a place quite like that before, and that Taijutsu…" She gasped, awed.

Ranma nodded. "I'm pretty sure we're on a different continent, if not a whole different planet." She contributed.

"What," Sakura said, remembering more. "And… you're… a guy?" She stopped there for a moment, latching onto something slightly more understandable. She'd had guys use the transformation Jutsu to sneak into the girls' locker rooms before, the only line of defense being Hinata Hyuuga and those eyes of hers, and she knew how to deal with this sort of thing. "You're a guy, and you're in my head, able to see me whenever you want?" She asked, her anger starting to build up.

"Aw, crap. Not this again." Ranma moaned, backing away. "Hey, Kura-chan, you wanna help me out here?"

The shadowed Sakura only smirked. "Oh no, I'm not getting involved here, Saotome, especially since I've TOLD you not to call me Kura-chan!"

"Oh, c'mon, you know it'll take me weeks ta make her listen otherwise, please Kura-chan?" Ranma babbled, as she could actually see Sakura's battle aura enter the visible spectrum. "Plus, remember that huge headache we gave ourselves after ya tried ta kill me?"

The shadowed Sakura, or 'Kura-chan,' thought this over for a moment. "You've got a point… which is really too bad, since seeing her beat you up would be funny." She admitted. Walking forward, she grabbed Sakura by one arm, then spoke. "First, she's made it a point to not be around when you're nude, especially since you started going through puberty. Second, as much as I hate to admit it, when she was older, she was better built than either of us, and third, I really don't want a splitting headache right now so don't even think of smashing her."

Sakura blinked. "Huh?"

"I know what you're thinkin, but I'm not under a Transformation Jutsu." Ranma said. "I'm in your mind, that'd be kinda hard ta pull off. It's a curse I've got." After this, she looked down. "Well, a curse I had." She muttered, softly.

"Hmm?" Sakura asked, noticing the other's downcast expression, and now that the wind had been taken out of the sales of her righteous feminine outrage, her curiosity took over. "You had it?"

Ranma nodded. "Been stuck in this form since I got here." She answered. "No hot water in here, really, so I can't even change back."

"So, you don't have the curse anymore?" Sakura asked, confused.

Ranma shrugged. "Oh no, I've got it." She answered. "or, well, you've got it."

Sakura paled. "I… I've got the curse?" She stammered, worriedly. If she had a problem like that, Sasuke-kun definitely wouldn't like her, and she'd be even more of a freak than her forehead already made her. When she looked up and saw her shadow snickering, she glared. "What's so funny?" She demanded.

Kura-chan continued snickering for a moment, before responding. "Yeah, it's so terrible that you turn into a girl when splashed with cold water, isn't it?" She asked.

"Yes, it.." Sakura started, then blinked. "I… oh." She finally realized, blushing. Searching desperately for a way to change the subject, she latched onto another concern. "So, those techniques I saw, you can really teach me how to fight like that? With the energy attack Jutsu, and everything?"

Kura-chan continued snickering at her counterpart's inept changing of the subject, but Ranma seemed oblivious. "Yeah, I can, but it'll take a long time ta get you into shape for it." She answered, receiving a glare from the pink haired girl. "Hey, look, if you were really in as good a shape as you think you are, I wouldn'ta had to nearly destroy half yer muscles in a fight with those morons."

"Okay, fine." Sakura admitted, a phantom pain pulsing through the fingers of one hand at the memory. "But I'm not going to have to end up turning into an obsessed weirdo like Gai and Lee, am I?" She asked, an image of herself prancing around in a green jumpsuit and shouting about the fires of youth entering her mind for a moment, before she forcibly shoved it out.

"Well, those guys are pretty dedicated, 'n it would be the fastest way ta improve your skills," Ranma said, noticing the horrified expression spreading across Sakura's face. "But I understand ya have a life outside of the training, and you're gunna need ta go on missions, and stuff. So no, you won't end up like them." Sakura grinned, then sighed in relief, so Ranma continued. "Does this mean you ain't gunna kill me for just bein stuck in here?"

The pink haired girl's eye twitched again at the reminder that she'd apparently had a boy spying on everything she did for her entire life, before she forcibly reminded herself what the other her had said. "No, I guess it's not your fault." She admitted, "But if I ever find you peeping on me, I'll…"

"Look, I don't intend to." Ranma said. "I've watched ya grow up, so yer sorta like a sister, or somethin." Just as Sakura was getting some rather warm and fuzzy feelings from that, the redhead opened her big mouth again. "Plus, I was a lot better lookin in my female form than you are, at least for now."

"Now that… she had coming." Kura-chan said, as her other self had somehow managed to pick up the heavily bound chest, bashing it over Ranma's head. "Still, we're gunna regret it."

Sakura was about to ask her what she meant, when she felt a huge pain erupt in the back of her brain. Groaning, she held her head until it passed, and when she was able to see past it again, Ranma was sitting next to them. "Note to self, don't hit the jerk unless she really, really deserves it." She muttered.

Ranma seemed to pay this no real notice, simply brushing off her clothes. "So, I help ya out and train ya in the art from now on, deal?" She asked.

"A deal? That reminds me, what are you getting out of this?" Sakura asked, the word suddenly sparking a thought.

"Well, ta be honest, in order to condition you right and show you how stuff's done, I'd have ta get out a bit, and it's getting a bit boring in here after twelve years." The pigtailed martial artist admitted, "Plus, I'm not really sure how I got here, and keeping you alive's important, both 'cuz letting you die'd be wrong, and 'cuz I've got no idea what would happen to me."

Sakura pondered for a moment. The price asked of her didn't really seem that high, especially for the abilities she'd just witnessed, other than the whole physical possession thing. "Is there any way I can make sure you can't just take over my body and walk off?" She asked.

Ranma considered. "I can promise not to, but ya probably won't just take that. You were able to push me out of control to go hug lover boy, though."

Sakura twitched at the redhead's annoying nickname for Sasuke, but finally nodded. "Yeah, I guess it's a deal." As she said this, though, deep down, she couldn't help but feel that she'd just opened a real can of worms, especially since the redhead was grinning at her… predatorily.

END.

As said, a big note.

I said this fic's main idea wasn't really original, because I was fully aware of "Wild Cherry Blossom," and the fact that the whole "Ranma in Sakura's head" idea had been done there. I hadn't heard of the rewrite, but the original, while a very good story, didn't go the way I wanted. When I started a Naruto fic, it was to try and capture what potential I felt that one didn't, through a different plot line. Obviously, from the reviews, some of you noticed. :)

I was kind of miffed at all the suggestions that I go read that fic, I mean, ten out of my first sixteen reviews said that, and someone mentioned my copying it wholesale. I got a bit annoyed, and contacted Largo myself, to ask him if he'd look this over, and tell me if I was walking too close a line to his fics, especially since I have no intention of reading Sakura the Wild Horse, or whatever it's called, just in case I do, subconsciously, start ripping it off.

Anyways, now I'm a lot less annoyed at those comments. Largo, a really nice author, by the way, told me why I was getting them. I'm apparently starting this at exactly the same spot as both of his, and I didn't remember Wild Cherry Blossom well enough to realize that. Still, I'm hoping that this will depart enough from both fics to be an enjoyable read in its own right, and even if it doesn't, Largo's given me very tentative, possibly retracted at any moment, approval to keep going.

So, having said all of that useless babble, I really do hope this chapter was enjoyed.

Again, R&R!


	3. Chapter 2, Finishing the Second Exam

Well, here's chapter 2. A bit shorter than chapter 1, but I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 2, Finishing the Second Exam.

"C'mon, get back up."

Sakura groaned as she jumped to her feet, feeling them thump into the wood of the Dojo's floor, and once again cursing this mental reality for feeling so real. She also didn't want to know what getting bruises in here would do to her mind or body. "Do you have to keep throwing me like that?" She demanded, irritably.

"'Till you manage to block the throw, yes." Her opponent, and new sensei, said with an irritating grin. "In here I can't train your body at all, but I also can't really hurt you." She explained. "So, it's the perfect place ta teach you the mechanics of techniques."

"Can't hurt me, right…" Sakura muttered, rubbing at the elbow she'd cracked against the floor. Still, she felt the pain fading away as she rubbed at it, and knew that she healed much more quickly here. "Can't believe this is your idea of training," She muttered.

Ranma sighed. "Normally, it wouldn't be." She responded. "Unfortunately, I really wasn't thinkin' about you joining the army when I decided ta leave you alone to live your life, 'n now I've gotta keep you from getting killed."

Sakura nodded reluctantly. She wanted to take offense, but she had been in the middle of resolving to get stronger, because she knew she wasn't good enough yet, when she'd first met Ranma. Still, the redhead was annoyingly superior about it, and she'd been throwing her around the room for what felt like days. "All right," She said, her eyes narrowing as she started forward.

Ranma got into the same stance she had been using, and Sakura tried yet another counter that she had devised. This time, as the redhead's leg snaked out to trip her, she jumped up, landing on the leg with full force, and came around with a hard blow to the side of the other girl's head. To her surprise, it worked, though as Ranma was falling sideways, she jumped and Sakura found herself losing her balance. She tried to regain it, but apparently far too late, as Ranma's fist impacted with her stomach, sending her flying several feet.

As she lay on the ground, trying to get her breath back, Ranma smiled. "Good work, now let's see if ya can avoid the follow up."

Sakura just groaned loudly, and nearby, she could hear Kura-chan snickering.

HR.

Much later, Ranma leaned against the wall of the training hall, watching as Sakura went through the forms of a basic Kata that was taught to all Genin at the academy. "Do that section again, but raise your foot slightly." She called, and then leaned back again.

Next to her, Kura-chan was lounging, and looking at her other self with an unreadable expression on her white lined face. "How is she doing?" She asked, casually.

Ranma grunted noncommittally.

"Give me a better answer than that!" Kura-chan yelled, her mood switching to anger rather quickly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sakura flinch slightly during a complex series of punches, and fall on her face.

"She WAS doing all right," Ranma griped. "Again, and next time we're working on ignoring distractions!"

"I hate you… both." Sakura grumbled, just loudly enough for the others to hear, as she picked herself up off of the ground.

"I dunno." Ranma continued, turning to the shadow next to her. "What's got me is that she should be waking up soon, or we're in trouble."

Kura-chan nodded. "Been… two days, hasn't it?"

"Two days?!" Sakura interrupted, this time managing to halt her movement and drop to a standing position without falling. "I've been here for two days?"

Ranma nodded.

"But… we'd already been out for one before I was knocked out, that only gives us two days to get to the tower!" Sakura squeaked. "I have to wake up! We'll lose the Chunin exams, and it'll be my fault, and then Sasuke-kun won't talk to me, and…" She started, panicked.

"Hmm…." Ranma said, speculatively.

"Stop that!" Kura-chan said, whapping the redhead in the back of the head. "Can you get us to wake up? She has a good point about the exams."

Ranma frowned. "Part 'o the reason I didn't use our aura to burn off the drugs is 'cuz You'll heal better if we're down," She replied, uncertainly.

Sakura winced, remembering the pain she'd been in before Tenten had sedated her, but then straightened. "I've healed at least a bit already, right?" She demanded.

"Yeah, but…"

"Then do it," Sakura ordered, determined.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Ranma said, sarcastically, and then closed her eyes. As the martial artist began to glow, Sakura looked over at the shadowed version of herself, nervously.

"What's she doing?" She asked, and suddenly began to feel a light tingling feeling running all over her body.

"Waking you up, probably," Kura-chan replied, as the world went white.

HR.

"Hmm… Well, she certainly did a number on herself." Sakura heard the male voice, and groaned slightly as she rolled to one side. "It looks like she's waking up." The voice continued, and she could hear the sound of footsteps running towards her.

Finally forcing her eyes open, the pink haired girl looked up into the slightly shiny glasses of a grey haired Genin. "Kabuto?" She asked, confused.

The man nodded. "Yes. I ran into your team a short while ago, and decided to…" He started, before being interrupted as Naruto stuck his head in between Sakura's and the medic-nin's.

"Hey, Sakura! You're actually awake! Are you all right? I was really worried, and…" He started babbling excitedly, and the Kunoichi sighed in exasperation.

"I'm fine, Naruto," She responded, pushing his head away with one hand, and then trying to sit up. She groaned as her muscles protested slightly, but managed to get vertical. Looking around, she took in the sight of a campsite, fire crackling in its middle, and three packs laying next to it. Noticing something missing, she asked, "Where's Sasuke-kun?"

"He went to get food," Naruto said, scowling slightly at the mention of the other boy.

"Oh," Sakura said, and then shrugged, forcing herself to her feet and only swaying slightly as she did so, though she could still feel aches in every muscle in her arms and legs.

"Hmm, interesting," Kabuto said, drawing the pink haired girl's attention back to him. As she looked up at him, she noticed that he was studying her intently.

"…What's interesting?" She asked, feeling slightly disconcerted by the man's gaze.

"Oh, not much!" Kabuto said, quickly, "Though now that I know you're all right, I've got to talk to your team-mate about something."

"Wh… what?" Naruto asked, nervously.

HR.

Sasuke Uchiha threw yet another kunai at a jumping fish, wishing that that idiot Uzumaki were here, if only to cause them to jump and be more easily caught. Still, he had understood, and even agreed with, the idea that someone should stay behind to watch over the unconscious Sakura.

The next time he saw her, he would have to have a serious talk with Tenten, as the dose of… whatever it was… that she'd given the other girl had lasted much longer than four hours, and could have caused his team to lose the exams.

Thinking about Sakura's sedation of course brought his mind back to the reason for it, and he raised one hand to the side of his neck. He could still feel the fangs there, placing an indelible imprint into his skin. As he thought about the seal, it pulsed, and he winced. "Power." He muttered, regaining his composure, and shaking his head.

Seconds later, another fish rose from the water, and the last loyal Uchiha sent a kunai at it, sticking it to the rock across the stream.

"YOU ALMOST DID WHAT?!" Sasuke's eye twitched, as he recognized that bellow of rage all too well.

"I wonder what the idiot's done now?" He said, in a deadpan voice, before leaping across the stream and collecting his Kunai-spitted fish. It was a good thing, he supposed, that Sakura was finally awake. Carrying her was annoying, and having Naruto do it was even worse, as the orange jacketed boy kept giggling like an idiot when he did so.

HR.

Kabuto leapt through the trees next to the Genin team, feeling vaguely annoyed and intrigued at the same time. He had known that he may be required to help the group through the second trial, in order to let Orochimaru see Sasuke's true power in the third, but he hadn't expected to actually team up with them to this degree, and actually guide them through the collectors near the tower.

Even in this annoying task, however, he had come across a positive. Though Orochimaru was interested in Sasuke, he, himself, was curious about Sakura. He had had almost an hour to examine her before she'd come to, and what he'd seen was a medical impossibility that had happened anyways.

Somehow, without any medical jutsu other than the most basic used on her, the girl had regenerated torn muscles, and even mostly healed hairline fractures in her fingers. It was almost like she had a regeneration bloodline, but Kabuto knew of all the bloodlines in the village, and the Haruno clan had none of any use. He had thought, for a while, that she had spontaneously generated a bloodline, but then he'd felt the pulse of energy, not really identifiable as chakra, that had run through her a few minutes before she'd woken.

Looking to the side, he saw the pink haired girl leaping next to her two teammates, and showing no visible pain as she went. Yes, this did indeed require more studying, if he could get away with it.

HR.

'Don't see why you got me ta do this,' Ranma complained, as she easily leapt from one tree branch to another.

'because you're the one who kept me asleep for two days when you could have woken me up at any time.' Sakura returned, irritably. 'Besides, I thought you said you were getting tired of hearing me whine about the pain."

'Me 'n my big mouth,' Ranma thought, and could hear snickering in her head. As she took another flying leap, she noted something out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, isn't that the giant bug Naruto killed earlier?" She asked, pointing to a tree nearby.

The other three stopped, circling around to land on the same branch she was on, and studied the giant insect.

"Hey, she's right! What's goin' on here?" Naruto demanded, irritated.

"Hmm, seems we've been going around in circles," Kabuto contributed, calmly.

"So that means… a genjutsu!" Sasuke exclaimed, irritated that he hadn't noticed it before.

"Great, wonder how long we've been wandering 'round in circles?" Ranma mumbled.

"This is a pretty simple Genjutsu, so now that we know what it is, we can bypass it," Kabuto said, and then frowned. "And its creators likely know that."

As he spoke, several kunai sped from the trees, causing the four to jump out of the way. As they did, Ranma's instincts took over, and she dashed towards the origin points of the knives. The second she got into the tree line, her eyes widened as she saw at least twelve Ninja, all identical, and all jumping towards her. She made a quite undignified "Eep" noise, rolling out of the way of the projectiles each of them threw at her, and then jumped back towards her own group. "We've got trouble!" She exclaimed, four Ninja dashing out of the brush after her.

Naruto, Sasuke and Kabuto were all quick to respond, drawing kunai of their own and throwing them through three of their opponents' chests. Ranma followed this up with a kick to the fourth's skull, and was surprised as the head distorted, and then the Ninja disappeared in a puff of misty smoke.

"Clones." Kabuto exclaimed, as the group fell back to cover each-other.

"And the originals are hidden somewhere, right?" Ranma asked, irritated.

"That's right," Kabuto replied, as he prepared to defend.

"Now that's a dirty trick!" Naruto exclaimed, and then, once given funny looks by all of his allies, he shrugged. "Hey, at least I fight with my clones!" He objected, loudly.

"Feh." Sasuke said, as he concentrated, his eyes beginning to shift into the Sharingan. Once he'd activated his bloodline, it would be easy to find where the real enemy was. Blinking once, the Uchiha felt a tremendous pulse of pain from his neck, and though the technique activated just as it should, he could barely concentrate past the agony he felt.

"Wh… what's happening?" The black haired boy demanded, sinking to the ground.

'Sasuke-kun!' Ranma heard Sakura exclaim in her head, but she relentlessly held control of their body.

'You run to lover boy now, 'n it's two on however many clones are there,' She snarled. 'He'll be fine without you for now, and he'll be worse off if we let someone bury a sword in his back.'

'But I…' Sakura started, before the martial artist's logic penetrated. 'You're right.' She admitted. As the two were having their mental conversation, several more clones appeared from the tree line, each of them looking exactly alike, and each face covered almost completely. The only thing that could be told about them was that they were Mist Village ninja, due to their headbands.

"I thought most clone techniques couldn't produce this many clones!" Naruto exclaimed, surprised.

"They can't," Kabuto replied. "Probably another Genjutsu."

"Great," Ranma mumbled, while in between the three, Sasuke was still trying to regain his senses. "So, what do we do?"

"You surrender!" One of the clones said, smugly, before they all leapt forward. Kabuto moved to intercept, and managed to catch the enemy across the neck with a hand-chop. Much to everyone's surprise, the medic-nin's hand went right through the other's neck, sending the head into the air. As Kabuto was about to jump away, however, the headless ninja lifted one arm, and drove a small knife into his opponent's arm.

Kabuto hissed in pain, jumping back to the group and holding his wounded arm, the blade still protruding from it. "All right, maybe I was wrong about genjutsu." He admitted.

"No, don't think you are." Ranma contributed. "These guys don't have any Chi… Chakra, can't you feel it?"

"She's right." Sasuke said, having apparently managed to regain at least some movement.

"So… what does that mean?" Naruto asked, confused, and then, something seemed to click in the Uzumaki boy's head. Ranma was about to ask him what he'd thought of, when he spoke. "Guys, let's take 'em on! We can beat these guys!"

'What? Is he nuts?' Ranma heard Sakura exclaim, and she had to admit that she was thinking something similar.

Seeing the other three's skeptical looks, the blond continued. "Trust me!"

Ranma shrugged. She supposed, other than running away, this was the only thing they could really do. "All right, I'm in." She said, confidently, as the enemy circled them. "If you don't have a good plan, I'm gunna have to hurt you."

Sasuke looked at both Naruto and Ranma askance, but then huffed. "Fine, let's do it." He said, withdrawing several shuriken from his belt pouch, and the group broke up, charging into the mass of enemies.

About three minutes later, as she was delivering a devastating ax kick to yet another clone, Ranma felt something small and extremely fast grab onto her. She was about to cave its skull in, when she saw that it was Naruto. "What the hell are you…" She started, but was silenced as she caught a look at the battlefield, noting that there was a pink haired girl who looked a lot like her, fighting the clones where she had just been. "Ah…" She said, then started to grin.

'He's pretty good on the fly.' She thought, admitting only to herself that she might have taken a little longer to think of a similar plan.

'Why, what's he doing?' Sakura asked, from inside of her head.

Ranma shrugged. 'Figure it out, student,' She said, smugly. Sakura's scream of frustration was music to her ears.

HR.

"Ah, here it is!" Naruto exclaimed, pulling a scroll from the backpack that one of the enemy ninja had been wearing. "We've got the heaven scroll!"

"That's great Naruto." Sakura said, trying to stifle a yawn. The entire team, plus Kabuto, had been up for the whole night, and somehow Naruto was still full of energy. There, that should help, I hope." She continued, as she stood from a kneeling position next to the grey haired medic-nin, who had looked better.

"Thank you." Kabuto said, standing and studying the bandaging on his arm, where a long gash that had been given to him by one of the mist ninjas' kunai had been patched. Turning, he looked over at Sasuke, who was clutching at a point on his shoulder, near his neck. "Sasuke, may I see that seal?" He asked.

The Uchiha boy let out a single "Hn," before pulling his collar up to conceal the mark, and forcing himself to his feet. "I'm fine." He continued, and then started off. "We're going."

"But… wha?" Naruto demanded, from where he was still holding the heaven scroll in victory.

"Come on, we have to get to the tower before the end of the day, or we forfeit." Sasuke explained, shortly.

"WHAT?!" Naruto yelled, and then charged after the Uchiha boy. Sighing, Sakura looked between the two and Kabuto, and then shrugged helplessly, starting off herself. The medic-nin smiled and waved after the running Genin for a moment, and then let the expression drop, narrowing his eyes.

HR.

Several hours later, the three members of Team 7 stood in the small room that they had been assigned in the tower, resting a bit before they opened their scrolls. Sasuke was sitting off in a corner by himself, and when Sakura had tried to go and talk to him, he had shrugged her off. Naruto, on the other hand, was asleep, the exertion of his battle the night before finally apparently showing.

This left Sakura, who was sitting on a bench, looking across the empty room. She was unsure about what had happened over the last few days, especially the bit about some other person riding around in her head, but she had to wonder if she would be here without Ranma's help. Still, the fact that the pigtailed martial artist had somehow gone to sleep without her during the night long wait had annoyed her greatly.

Then, there was whatever had happened to Sasuke. He'd seemed a lot more… anxious… since Orochimaru bit him, and she'd seen the pulses of pain from the mark on his shoulder. Unfortunately, she had no idea what to do about it. Sighing, she leaned against the wall, considering things. Within moments, her eyelids had drooped slightly, and she'd let them fall completely shut.

"Oy, Sakura!" She heard a loud voice yell, what seemed like only seconds later. Blinking several times, she saw Naruto looking at her intently. "You gunna be up when we open the scroll, or what?"

"Oh… of course!" She said, quickly, and shot to her feet. When she heard a snicker that seemed to reverberate through her mind, she scowled. 'So, you're finally awake too, huh?' She asked.

Ranma's voice almost sounded like it was yawning, but she replied quickly enough. 'Been awake for a while. Now, should we give 'em the scroll?'

'Give them the scroll?' Sakura thought, and then blinked as she found herself reaching into her tool pouch, and withdrawing a heaven scroll.

"Hey Sakura, Where did you get one of those?!" Naruto asked, shocked.

'Yeah, where DID I get one of these?' Sakura demanded to herself, looking down to read the Kanji on the scroll's side.

'Stole it from that Kabuto guy.' Ranma said, then paused for a minute. 'You mean, you didn't know? I figured you'd seen it, and you'd give the scroll we got from those Mist guys to him when we were done.'

Sakura's eyebrow twitched. "Um, it's hard to explain." She muttered, embarrassed. 'And next time you do something like that, tell me!' She thought at Ranma, loudly.

"Well, it doesn't matter." Sasuke said, from where he was standing next to Naruto. "Let's just open them."

"Yeah, I guess so." Naruto agreed, and pulled both a heaven and earth scroll from his pack, allowing them to unfold in front of him.

HR.

"What do you mean you don't have it?" Yoroi Akado demanded, glaring at Kabuto, one eye twitching.

"I mean that I don't have the heaven scroll. It must have somehow been lost." Kabuto replied, his glasses glinting.

"Well then, what are we going to do? We can't enter the third round now!" Misumi complained.

"You two don't have to worry about that, I'll find some way to fix this." Kabuto mumbled, and walked away. He had no idea how he was going to fix this, but if he didn't, Orochimaru would probably feed him to Manda.

HR.

In a room near the top of the tower in the forest of death, several Jounin instructors sat and studied reports. The only one who was not doing this was Kakashi, as his team had arrived last, and hadn't had the time to write one up. Frowning, Maito Gai looked over the report his team had given him, and his massive eyebrows lowered over his eyes.

Walking over to his eternal rival, he frowned down at him. "Kakashi, I'm surprised at you." He said, seemingly calm.

"Hmm?" The masked Ninja asked, putting down a copy of "Love Love Elysium" that he'd been reading.

"I knew about Uchiha, and I suspected Uzumaki, but how could you keep as glorious a fount of youth as Haruno from me for all this time?" the green clad man proclaimed, striking a pose.

For the hundredth time, Kakashi could have sworn that he saw waves striking behind his old annoyance, erm, rival, but dismissed that as he raised one of his own eyebrows. "What are you talking about, Gai?"

The other didn't respond, merely thrusting a page from his report at the copy ninja's face. Puzzled, Kakashi took it and began to read. "You've got to be kidding." He said, flatly.

Gai shook his head.

"If this is true, I have no idea how." Kakashi admitted. "She defeated… two other genin by herself?"

"That is what the report says." Gai said.

"I see." Kakashi returned, and then darted to his feet. "I'll be right back."

Gai looked on, confused, as his eternal rival ran out of the room as quickly as he could. "Hmm, I wonder what's wrong with him? He mumbled, and then shrugged, reading the rest of the report.

END.

Note: Okay, I know, not much happened and it was a bit short. Still, I had to cover these events, and hopefully now that I've gotten past the stuff I had to rehash without changing, I can get on to the fun stuff.

Please R&R!


	4. Chapter 3, Don’t Poke a Sleeping Racoon

Hi, guys, Weebee here. Happy holidays to everyone out there, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm going on a little vacation to visit my family later today, and it will last about two weeks. I may have internet, and I may publish, but it's not definite, so I decided to give my seasons greetings here. This extra long chapter is my gift to you guys, for being pretty awesome people most of the time.

Chapter 3, Don't Poke a Sleeping Racoondog in the Eye.

As Team 7 raced into the large space under the tower where all of the teams had been ordered after the scrolls had been opened, Sakura took the opportunity to observe the other teams. She frowned at what she saw, as though some of the members appeared injured, most of the groups, including the Sound nin who had attacked her team, had arrived early and had an opportunity to rest. She had no idea why they'd been called here, but she hoped it had nothing to do with endurance, as she was on her last legs, and as she turned back to her own team, she saw that Sasuke was once more briefly cringing and holding the mark on his neck.

The pink haired girl started towards the boy, but was stopped as the Hokage's voice echoed from the front of the room. Startled, she looked towards the sound to see the Third, standing in the middle of a small group of special jounin and jounin sensei, including Kakashi. As her eyes passed his, he caught them for a moment, and she was surprised to see an almost speculative look on his face.

"Welcome," the Hokage started, "and congratulations on passing the second Chunin exam."

As he went on with his speech, Sakura heard a strange sound from inside of her head, almost like a surprised gasp. 'Ranma?' She asked, wondering what was going on.

'Sakura, look over to your left, about forty-five degrees.' Ranma's voice instructed, and the pink haired girl did so. To that side were several teams she recognized, and she smiled as she saw her fellow classmates and Lee among them, but there was also another group, all three wearing the headbands of the village of the sand.

'What am I looking for?' The pink haired girl asked, concerned.

'That kid with the red hair.' Ranma explained. 'Since I'm a little closer to the front of your mind now, I can use my aura sense and some other passive abilities, even when you're in control. That kid's exuding enough anger chi to power Ryoga for a year, and something feels… wrong… about it.'

Sakura frowned. She wasn't sure what anger chi was, but it didn't sound pleasant. Narrowing her eyes and focusing on the other boy, she thought that she felt… something, though she was unaware of how to describe it. Still, it started bringing up a lump of fear in her stomach for little apparent reason. 'So, what does it mean?' She asked, finally.

'It means, if we fight that guy…' Ranma started, and it sounded as if she was having trouble completing her sentence, as if the words were sticking in her throat, even if she didn't have to actually speak them. 'We give up.'

"What?!" The pink haired Ninja burst out, absolutely not expecting that response.

"Miss Haruno, I fail to see why this is so surprising." The Hokage rebuked from the front of the room. "Though none of you knew the specifics, the idea of proving one's strength is common to all Ninja, when necessary."

"Oh, um, I'm sorry, Lord Hokage." Sakura said, quickly, and then bowed.

The Hokage just smiled at the girl for a moment, letting her know that there would be no further rebuke or reprisal, before going on with his speech, which Sakura once again tuned out to continue her talk with Ranma.

'But this is my only chance to become a chunin without spending years in the field first, I can't just give up on it!' She complained, resolutely.

'Didn't say you had to, only if you ever have to face that guy.' Ranma replied. 'From what I'm getting, he almost wants to tear his opponents to shreds. The rage's radiating off 'im in waves. Anyone else, and go nuts.'

'Yeah, I… I guess.' Sakura said, looking towards the red haired boy again, and now much more sure that she could feel something… odd… rolling off of him. As she turned her attention back to the Hokage's speech, and blushed at realizing that she had missed almost all of it, the pink haired girl blinked to see one of the special jounin stepping up to replace him.

The man coughed for a moment, sounding almost as if he was going to bring up a lung, and then spoke. "Hello, I am Hayate Gekkou, and I will be officiating for the third exam preliminaries."

"Preliminaries?" Sakura heard Choji exclaim from nearby.

"Yes." Hayate said, and then coughed again. "It seems that this year's Chunin exams were a little too easy, and too many teams made it through to the third exam. Since, as the Hokage has said, many of the world's most powerful people will be watching the event, we will need to cut it down to a more manageable size in order to keep it moving." He stopped to cough again. "As such, we are holding preliminaries to weed out the weaker competitors."

"But a lot of us haven't fully recuperated from the second exam yet!" Ino complained, motioning to Lee, who still looked really scraped up.

"That is understood, and that is why any one person will be allowed to drop out of the exams from this point forward, without any repercussion to their team." Hayate explained. "You may now have five minutes to decide if you are staying in or withdrawing."

As the man walked out of the middle of the room, coughing once more, Sakura heard Ranma muttering about bleeding and the drowning of the world, but ignored it, as it didn't seem to be aimed at her. Frowning, she looked around to see the other teams' members talking to each-other, deciding whether they should stay in or not. She thought of her own team. She and Sasuke, at least, were both bone tired even if Naruto was as bursting with energy as he always was. Also, she still felt a little stiff due to her injuries not quite having healed yet.

Looking over at the black haired Uchiha, she noticed that he was still wincing slightly and holding his neck. 'That cursed seal, it's still bothering him?' She thought, worried. She'd seen how badly it had incapacitated him in his previous fight, and didn't really want to think about what would happen in this one if he went out onto the field. 'I… I can't let him go out there.' She realized.

'And how are you going to stop him?' Ranma asked. 'He's as determined to get through this as you are, maybe more.'

'I… I don't know,' Sakura admitted, 'maybe I can tell the judges and they can take him out for medical reasons?'

Inside of her head, she heard Ranma sigh. 'Sakura, I don't really like the idea of you becoming a chunin.' The other's voice came back, evenly. 'It puts you on more difficult missions, and you almost got yourself killed on the exam.'

'I…" Sakura said, confused at where Ranma was going with this.

'How would you like it if I forcefully took your body over, and announced that I, Sakura Haruno, was dropping out of the tournament because I was too tired to fight.'

'You wouldn't…?!' Sakura gasped, horrified.

'No, I wouldn't, but that's basically what you'd be doin if ya reported lover boy right about now. I don't like the guy, but that don't mean I'll let ya screw up yer chances like that, and interfere with another martial artist's goal.' Ranma replied.

Sakura's face paled. 'I… you're right.' She finally admitted, but then looked back to Sasuke, who had straightened up slightly. 'B.. but I'm so worried about him, and…' She thought, and Ranma could feel the tightening at the corner of her eyes that signified tears.

'Aw, crap. I hate ta see girls cry.' She thought, unaware that Sakura could hear it, and then a long mental sigh escaped. 'Why don't ya just tell him what you're worried about? Ya could get him out, ya might not, but at least you tried and ya didn't take the decision out of his hands.' She finally offered.

Sakura nodded decisively, confusing Naruto, who was coming over to her to ask why she was staring off into space, and started to walk up to Sasuke.

HR

Outside of the tower, Kabuto was pacing back and forth nervously, frantically wracking his brain for a new plan. He had, quite frankly, screwed up, and he knew what Orochimaru tended to do to those who failed him. If he were lucky, he would be tied up and left in a deserted valley with a giant summoned serpent, and if he wasn't lucky… He shuddered.

He had to ensure that the Uchiha made it through to the finals, while still making it look like a good show. This was no easy task, as even as good as Sasuke was, the cursed seal nearly incapacitated him. Worse yet, he'd heard somewhere that one of the Jounin instructors had asked for a last minute re-ordering of the matchups, and he had no idea who Sasuke would be fighting to begin with.

Sighing, the grey haired Medic Nin looked up at the tower, and reached up to pull at his leaf village headband. There was only one way he could think to fix this, and it was down-right distasteful. Stepping forward, he disguised himself under as many transformation, illusion and invisibility jutsu as he knew, which was a staggering amount, and headed for the arena where the preliminary matches were being held.

HR.

In the arena, standing along the side next to Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura looked to the latter and, just for a moment, thought of smacking him over the head, repeatedly. She'd practically begged him to think of dropping out of the preliminaries, listing many valid reasons why he should, but he'd just shrugged, said he'd be fine, and refused to answer her afterward with anything other than "Hn."

'He's such a jerk!' She heard a voice say from inside her head, and was about to yell at Ranma for saying bad things about Sasuke-kun, when she realized it was her own voice that had yelled it.

'Told ya it wouldn't do any good.' Ranma's voice drawled back, sounding pretty indifferent about the whole thing.

'Yeah, but did he have to ignore me like that?' Sakura heard her own voice again, and guessed, correctly, that it was Kura-chan talking.

'You wanna be quiet?' Ranma asked. "First match's about to start.'

"Hmm?" Sakura asked, and looked up at the scoreboards on the other side of the massive underground arena. Sure enough, the names of all of the contestants were displayed there, rapidly flickering through the rows until two blinked up and stayed. "For the first match, Hinata Hyuga Vs. TenTen." Hayate announced, so quietly that most in the room could barely hear him.

The black haired girl jumped easily down from where she was standing next to the rest of Team Gai, Lee cheering her on as Neji looked as indifferent as physically possible, taking her place in the middle of the arena. A few moments passed, and when there was no sign of Hinata, Hayate called her name again.

Eventually, the purple haired girl reluctantly stepped forward from where she was standing slightly behind her two teammates, and walked down the steps to the ring. As TenTen looked into her eyes, the slightly older girl couldn't help but feel a little bad. Personally, though he was her teammate, she thought Neji could be a bit of a jerk, but this Hyuga was a completely different prospect. She seemed very timid, and was holding herself defensively.

Uncertainly, the black haired girl spoke. "Hinata, if you'd like, you can forfeit you know."

For a moment, the purple haired girl considered doing just that, but then she heard a commotion coming from the side of the spectator gallery. It was Naruto, and he was yelling and waving his fist. "Come on, let's see a great fight! This is gunna be awesome!" The blond haired boy cried, jubilantly. Naruto was, of course, just letting his enthusiasm for the event get away from him, but to Hinata, this cheering seemed to mean something else.

"N… Naruto?" She whispered, and then her stance firmed slightly. "Thank you for the offer, but I will fight you." She continued, quietly.

"All right. I'd feel a little bad if I got advanced through my opponent giving up, anyways." TenTen said, grinning at the other girl.

After she said this, Hayate stepped between the two, and began counting to begin the match. When he finally said "Begin!" and used the leaf teleportation technique to get out of the middle of the battlefield, Hinata started making handseals immediately.

TenTen also started moving, withdrawing several Shuriken from her belt pouch and tossing them at the other girl, meaning to rip her clothing and scare her a little. Much to her surprise, however, Hinata finished her seals, and the veins started bulging around her Byakugan eyes shortly before the blades could impact.

Being able to track the incoming projectiles perfectly, the Hyuga heiress managed to scramble out of the way, but did stumble as one blade caught on the leg of her pants. Recovering quickly, she charged for her enemy, preparing to engage in close combat, where her Gentle Fist style could give her the advantage.

TenTen, being a ranged combat specialist and having worked with Neji for well over a year, wasn't about to let this happen and started back-peddling, tossing a few more weapons from her pouch to keep her foe from getting closer. Circling around sideways, she frantically wracked her brain for strategies that had worked at least a little against Neji. Hinata seemed much more inexperienced, though she didn't want to go for any of the harder takedowns.

Narrowing her eyes, the black haired Kunoichi withdrew a scroll from apparently nowhere, and cut her own finger in order to allow a line of blood to drip down it. "Rising Dragon Jutsu!" She called, and the scroll seemed to explode in a mass of Kunai, Shuriken and spiked chains, all of which were headed straight for Hinata.

As TenTen had hoped, the Hyuga hadn't become proficient enough with her eyes to track all of the tools, and as they widened in panic, she froze in indecision. All of the bladed weapons sped past her on either side, though some did snag in her clothes, but the several spiked chains seemed to curve in mid-air, wrapping around her back and sliding back to clasp in front of her.

"Wh… what?" Hinata asked, struggling to move as she found herself wrapped in a cocoon of chain.

"You lose." TenTen stated, yanking the one chain she'd kept a hold of, and pulling the girl towards her, where she held a Kunai under her chin.

"I… I lose." Hinata eventually said, sighing.

TenTen nodded, and began quickly unbinding her opponent. "You did all right." She whispered into the younger girl's ear, causing Hinata's eyes to widen. "I normally never miss."

"Th… Thank you." Hinata stuttered, as she was helped to her feet, and walked out of the arena.

"What a pathetic first match." One of the Ninja from the village of the Sand, the one with the puppet on his back, said as he turned away from the arena and to the other two.

"Hey, what'd you say?!" Kiba demanded, but he was grabbed by the shoulder by Shino.

"Settle that if you get a match with one of them." The bug master said, though Kiba could have sworn that he saw a glimmer of hostility behind the other's odd, covered eyes.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Kiba said, and Akamaru gave a disgruntled growl.

Nearby, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were looking down on the ring, the former whistling at how well TenTen did, while the latter two just looked on silently for different reasons. Sasuke's expression was a blanks slate, but Sakura was worried, and it showed on her face. She had suspected at the beginning that her team's tiredness would lead to problems, especially hers, and judging from the fact that TenTen had seemed to be at full strength and resupplied, she'd been right to worry.

As she watched the arena, she didn't notice Kakashi approaching the group until he was almost upon them. When he clasped Sasuke's shoulder and turned the boy to face him, both of the others turned as well.

"Sasuke, I need to talk to you alone." The silver haired man said, looking the boy in the eyes steadily.

"I have to wait for my match." Sasuke replied, flatly.

Kakashi sighed, and then nodded towards the board. The three Genin turned towards it, as the names sped past, and eventually settled on "Sakura Haruno Vs. Shikamaru Nara."

"I see." Sasuke said, and then turned to Sakura. "Would you do something for me?" He asked, looking into the pink haired girl's eyes.

Sakura's heart started beating faster, as she looked up at the boy she'd idolized for years, and she asked, "Yes?"

"Stay conscious until I get back." The Uchiha ordered, and then turned, walking away.

"Hey, what are you talking about, Sasuke?! Sakura's gunna beat that lazy Nara like a drum, right Sakura?" Naruto exclaimed, loudly. Sasuke didn't reply, merely walking off with Kakashi.

"I…" Sakura said, unsure of what to think or say at the moment. It hurt, to have Sasuke dismiss her fighting ability like that. It hurt a lot. "Yeah, I'm gunna win!" She finally burst out, clenching her fist.

"Then you'd better get down here." A bored voice called up to her, as Shikamaru stood at his place. "They'll disqualify you soon, you know. Of course, that'd just be easier, so if you wanna stay up there I'm not going to stop you."

Sakura responded by jumping over the wall, landing on the ring floor in front of the relaxed looking boy. Falling into a stance, she waited for Hayate to announce the start of the match, and thought to the person in the back of her mind, 'Do you have any suggestions?'

For a moment, there was no reply, and then Ranma's voice came. 'He uses shadows, right?'

'From what I hear, yes.' Sakura confirmed.

'Then, keep moving, keep out of shadow, and try to work with attack methods that don't involve moving your body.' Ranma returned, smoothly.

'that's… all? Two obvious responses and one I don't even understand?!' The pink haired girl thought, irritated.

'You're not in any real danger, and that should be enough to let you win, if you're good enough.' Ranma returned, sounding almost as casually dismissive as Shikamaru.

'Why you…' Sakura thought, about to start yelling at the voice in her head, when she heard Hayate shout "Begin!" She started moving instantly, following Ranma's first bit of advice, while thinking of a plan of attack.

Inside of her head, Ranma sat back and watched, while Kura-chan glared at her. "You know, you're not being nearly as helpful now." She complained to the slightly shorter redhead.

"Like I said, I'd like it much better if she stayed a genin until she gets a bit better, and I did give her advice that could let her beat him, if she's skilled enough." Ranma replied.

"Attacks that you don't need to move to use?" Kura-chan asked, unbelieving.

Ranma just shrugged and leaned back in a comfortable chair she'd materialized out of nowhere. "Popcorn?" She asked, materializing a bag of the stuff out of the emptiness of the mindscape.

Kura-chan's eyebrow twitched violently, but she found herself reaching for some of the junk food before she realized what she was doing, and resigned herself to watching this fight, no matter how it turned out.

HR.

"Stupid voices in my head." Sakura panted, as she once more jumped away from a wall, tossing the last of her projectiles. Unfortunately, she knew no distance Jutsu, and was afraid of closing the distance, as then Shikamaru's shadow would be far too close to easily dodge.

The other Ninja, for his part, was looking irritatingly bored with the whole situation, dodging just enough to keep out of the way of her blades, while lashing out with his shadow technique to try and catch her. Knowing that he had no fears of reprisal other than the thrown weapons, he was taking the fight slowly and methodically, waiting for the kunoichi to wear herself out from constant movement, or make a mistake that he could capitalize on.

That mistake didn't take long in coming, as two ninja re-entered the arena, the girl's team leader and one of her teammates, who'd left when she'd started the fight. She looked up at them, stopping her movement for a split second too long, and Shikamaru's shadow closed around her before she could react.

Abruptly, the pink haired girl stopped dead in her tracks, caught in his shadow bind, and Shikamaru smiled. "This fight was really too long, but it's finally over." He said, calmly. "Give up, and I won't have to go through the effort of knocking you out."

Sakura gritted her teeth, her eyes flickering to Sasuke, who was looking down at her with a neutral expression, and back to her opponent. She tried with all of her might to move a muscle, but other than most of the ones in her face, and the automatic muscles that kept her alive, she was completely paralyzed. She couldn't believe this. She'd fulfilled Sasuke's request, but immediately afterward she'd proven that that was all she was capable of, when she'd wanted to show her skills.

She wouldn't let this battle end like this, though. Not after the Forest of Death, and all the hard training she'd done with Ranma in her mindscape so far. Unfortunately, she had very little idea of what to do otherwise. She thought back over the advice Ranma had given her. Now, she couldn't move, and she was already caught in a shadow. There was, however, the third component. "Use attacks where I don't have to move." She growled, thinking furiously.

"Hmm?" Shikamaru asked, waiting and tapping his foot, annoyingly causing the pink haired girl's own foot to do the same.

Suddenly, an idea hit her. There had been one attack, one that hadn't used any hand seals… but could she do it? Concentrating, the pink haired girl dredged up every memory of how the attack had felt when Ranma'd let it off. How the Chakra in her body had seemed to be… augmented… by something else, and then it'd ripped itself free, slamming Zaku into a tree. At the moment, it was her only chance.

"Well?" Shikamaru asked, almost sounding impatient.

"Moko-Takabisha!" She cried, and her body exploded in a cascade of blue light. All of it seemed to wash forward, a massive wall of destruction that plowed up the floor of the arena as it flowed towards the boy. Shikamaru tried to get out of the way, but was slowed down slightly by the fact that he was shadow-bound to Sakura, and ended up being hit full force by the blue energy wave, flying quickly back into a wall.

Sakura pumped her fist for a moment, then sank to her knees as the world began to spin around her. She noted that it felt a little drafty, and looked down to see the front of her clothing shredded. "Eep!" She yelped, moving her hands to cover her chest and crotch.

"Sakura Haruno is the winner." Hayate said, coughing and looking away from the mostly nude young girl.

Sakura nodded, and then quickly scrambled out of the ring, and the area, to go looking for some clothes.

Up on the observation balcony, the reactions were very different depending on who you were. Naruto and Rock Lee had both passed out with nosebleeds, while most of the others looked away in deference to Sakura's modesty, and those who didn't were quickly slapped into submission by their female teammates.

Kakashi stared fixedly forward, his Sharingan eye uncovered, and his mouth agape. No, for once he was not being a perv. Sakura was only twelve, after all, but he had seen something that shocked him to his very core when she'd used that attack. For the briefest moment after the light had cleared, a symbol had shone on the girl's stomach… the symbol that also adorned the stomach of Naruto Uzumaki.

Blinking and then covering his eye, Kakashi was glad that he had been here to see this, even if it was because Sasuke had refused to have his cursed mark sealed until after his match. Unfortunately, this kind of procedure couldn't be done unless the participant was fully willing, given that it depended on his or her willpower to work.

What he'd just observed could be almost as dangerous as Orochimaru's return.

HR.

'I can't believe it destroyed my clothes.' Sakura ranted, pulling on a spare uniform that one of the older Ninja had lent her in a bathroom of the tower.

'Um, well, it wasn't supposed to.' Ranma said, sheepishly, and almost sounded nervous.

'Huh?' Sakura asked, completely confused.

'When I said attacks that didn't need you to move, I was expecting ya to try and distract him with taunts and insults, so he'd let his concentration slip, not to fire half our chi at him like a super-charged Moko-Takabisha.' She explained.

Sakura blinked. 'What?' She asked, deadpan.

'Um, I kinda don't even know how ta focus the attack anywhere but my hands, myself. Erm, well, I didn't know how to do it anywhere else up 'till you pulled it off.' Ranma answered.

Sakura was about to snap back, when she heard her inner self giggling like an idiot. When Kura-chan had finally gotten herself under control, she asked, 'You mean it was an accident?'

'Um, yeah.' Ranma responded, subdued.

At this,, even Sakura found herself giggling slightly, but she also felt a swell of pride. She'd managed to do something with this chi, whatever it was, that even Ranma didn't know how to do. She knew that it was mostly a fluke, and that she'd never have been able to do it if she hadn't felt Ranma's attack first, but she didn't much care. It was still a serious mood booster.

Straightening the slightly over-sized uniform, the girl stepped out of the bathroom, headed back to the arena. When she entered, she saw that one fight had taken place while she was gone, and it had done quite a lot of property damage. There were splintered poles, and bits of what almost looked like body parts everywhere. In addition, one of the members of the Sand Team, the one with the hood and the bundle on his back, was laid out in the middle of the arena.

Nearby, Naruto was jumping up and down, giving "V" signs, and punching the air. "I did it, I'm in the third round!" The blond said, jubilantly.

"So, the knucklehead won?" The pink haired girl asked, walking up to where her sensei and Sasuke stood.

"Hn." Sasuke replied, though Sakura noted that his Sharingan was active.

Kakashi didn't respond, and he was staring at her in a way that made her fidget uncomfortably. "Is… something wrong Sensei?" She asked, nervously.

The man quickly shook his head. "Nothing at all." He said, but his voice was obviously strained. Sakura wanted to push it more, but that was about when Naruto jumped up to the group, and dashed at her, ready to give her a big hug. Before she even realized, one foot was raised, planted in the middle of the blond boy's forehead.

'Sorry, reflex.' Ranma's voice came, sounding almost sheepish.

'It's fine.' Sakura responded, but after seeing the orange jacketed boy looking dejectedly up at her from the floor, she extended a hand to help him up.

"Congratulations on winning, Naruto." She said, as politely as she could.

"Thanks!" He replied, giving a thumbs up. "That guy's traps were pretty easy to bypass with the shadow clone technique, though."

"Hmm, they're deciding the next match." Sasuke commented, and the other two turned to look. When the names finally stopped flickering, the readout said "Rock Lee Vs. Shino Aburame."

Sakura looked over to where Team Gai were, expecting to see Lee jumping for joy that he was going to fight. What she did see caused her to blink rapidly and repeatedly.

"Get out of my head, I must not think of Sakura like that! She is innocent, and beautiful, and I must not think of her like that!" The boy was shouting, and slamming his head against a wall.

Sakura felt her face heat up, as she realized what the boy was referring to, and all the compliments he was giving her in effort to erase the images were kind of nice, too, but as she watched she saw that his head was starting, very slightly, to crack the stone.

She took a step forward, about to say something, when Gai stepped up next to Lee, and interposed his hand between the boy's head and the stone. A wince of pain seemed to cross his face as the two impacted, but it did get Lee's attention.

"Gai Sensei?" He asked, looking up.

"Get ahold of yourself, Lee! You've got a fight, and you don't want to miss it and end up disqualified, do you?"

"A fight?" Lee asked, and looked around. When his eyes rested on the board on the other side of the arena, they widened. "No, I do not want to miss it. I finally get to fight and show off my skills as a genius of hard work!"

"That's right!" Gai said, sticking one thumb up and giving off a smile that seemed to sparkle. "Now, go get 'em, Lee!"

"Yes I will, Sensei!" Lee exclaimed, and then jumped down, running into the middle of the arena, where Shino already stood.

"You three stay here. I'll be right back." Kakashi said, noting that he was pretty sure of how this fight would go.

"Don't you want to watch the fight, Sensei?" Naruto asked, confused.

"Don't worry, I'll be able to later. They're recorded." Kakashi said, and walked off.

His three students wondered where he was going for a moment, but were soon distracted as they looked to the battlefield, only to see it quickly filling up with little black things. "Are those…" Naruto asked, astonished.

"Oh, ugh!" Sakura exclaimed, shuddering. "I've never seen that many bugs in my life!"

"And they're coming out of Shino?"

"It's the Aburame clan technique." Sasuke said, in a monotone. He was trying to hide the winces of pain that came every minute or two, now, but definitely didn't want to show it to these two. "They let themselves become living hives for insect colonies that eat chakra. A pretty effective bloodline."

"Hey, how do you know that?" Naruto asked, looking at the boy suspiciously.

"I study." Sasuke replied, patronizingly, earning a hurt look from Sakura, who studied just as much as he did in class, and hadn't heard anything about these bugs. Just as she was about to say so, Gai called out from the sidelines.

"Lee, take them off!" The green clad Sensei ordered.

"Huh?" Lee asked. "But I thought that I must only do that to protect people."

"Yes, and becoming a chunin will allow you to do that better, so take them off!" Gai said.

"Yes, sir!" Lee replied, and bent to remove something from around his legs.

'What…?' Sakura thought, confused.

'Looks like training weights, but I don't know what good ones that small'd do someone like Lee.' Ranma's voice came back, instantly.

When Lee dropped the weights, and they hit the ground with a massive billow of smoke, Sakura almost felt the glee in Ranma's mental voice. 'I want some!' The martial artist exclaimed, giddily.

When Lee jumped into the air too quickly for Shino to react, bounced off of one of the arena walls, and came in with a speeding ax kick that was only momentarily hindered by the screen of insects that scrambled to help their master, Sakura was getting disconcerted by the giggling coming from inside of her head.

At the moment, her annoying new mental voice sounded like nothing so much as a young village girl presented with a lifetime supply of candy.

Once the dust settled, it was clear that Lee was victorious, though his green jumpsuit was splattered with squashed bugs, as Shino lay sprawled on the ground with his sun glasses broken. "Rock Lee is the winner!" Hayate said, clearly.

When Lee heard that, he walked over to Shino, checking him over and finding him unconscious. "It seems that I should not have taken off my leg weights. I am sorry for having done so, and next time we battle it will be more fair!" He said, not at all trying to be condescending.

That, of course, was when the chakra exhaustion from flying through a cloud of chakra absorbing insects hit him, and given his extremely small pool of said energy, it hit him hard. Abruptly, just after being declared the winner, the green clad boy fell over, unconscious.

HR.

"Are you sure about this, Kakashi?" The Hokage asked, as he studied a sketch that the instructor had quickly jotted down on a piece of paper. He knew that the drawing was photographically accurate, and this disturbed him greatly.

"Yes, I saw this mark on Sakura's stomach after her match." The silver haired man reported.

Hmm…" The older ninja said, studying the image again. "If this is holding a demon, it must be a very weak one, given how flawed the seal is, but it's troubling that we never noticed before."

"Well," Kakashi said, coughing nervously. "We don't exactly ask our ninja to strip and channel chakra."

The Hokage had to chuckle a little at that, even given the seriousness of the situation. "True." He conceded. "The fact is that if this young kunoichi is the container for some sort of demon, it'd be best if we don't confront her until after the preliminaries are over."

"But, sir…" Kakashi started, but was stopped with the Hokage's raised hand.

"Kakashi, I know you're worried, but it would be better if we could confront her away from the other genin, and it is entirely possible that this is some sort of misunderstanding. We will not endanger the lives of our ninja needlessly, and if this proves to be a false positive, we will not get the girl cast out the way Naruto was, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." Kakashi said, and his feelings were slightly conflicted. Sakura was a member of his team, and he worried about her as any Genin Sensei did, but it seemed that she may have been hiding many things from him and the others, if both the report Gai's team had filed, and what he'd seen today were correct. He was at least certain of the second, as his Sharingan eye kept an indelible image of the sealing mark in his brain, now that he'd seen it.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Kakashi." The Hokage said, looking at the man sympathetically. "I know it must have been difficult."

"Thank you, sir." The Copy Ninja said, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

The Hokage turned back to the tournament that was going on, and frowned slightly as he saw that a round had gone past while he'd been talking. Apparently, Ino had managed to capture Choji with her mind switching technique, and make him give up the match.

He chuckled. He really should have seen that coming, but it was unimportant at the moment. He had this new development with Haruno to think of, piled on to the very important matter of an infiltrating Orochimaru.

The old man in the white hat sighed, letting himself relax in his chair. It was times like this that he'd desperately wished they'd been able to appoint the fifth after Minato's death.

HR.

Asuma Sarutobi sputtered in rage as he glared at Choji. "I can't believe this…" He muttered. "YOU LET HER BRIBE YOU WITH A STEAK DINNER?!"

Choji shrugged, smiling. "What, it's better than the weeks worth of ramen you were offering," He said, "And besides, I really didn't want to have to fight one of my teammates.

"That's beside the point, you… I…. argh!" Asuma said, tugging on the hair that fell over his headband.

"No real point in complaining about it now." Shikamaru said, where he was standing with an icepack over his head from his not-so-friendly introduction to a wall. "At least it means one of us got through to the third exam, and Ino showed some pretty good tactical ability by knowing precisely what buttons to push and when."

"Who's the Sensei here, exactly?" Asuma growled, leveling a glare at his third student.

Shikamaru shrugged, And then went back to his former occupation of seeming to stare off into space while observing the arena out of the corner of his eye.

Asuma just sighed. "Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning." He muttered, and stalked off.

"So, who's next?" Naruto asked, excitedly.

"Looks like I am." Sasuke said, and a look of relief flitted across his face for a moment, before it was gone. Jumping to the floor of the arena, he stumbled for a moment, almost falling, but straightened up after a few steps. Looking around, he saw no opponent.

"Dosu Kinuta, to the arena floor, please." Hayate said, speaking into a speaker grill at the edge of the floor which sent his voice through intercoms in the entire tower. The arena fell silent for several moments, before he shrugged. "It appears that your opponent has not shown up. You are the winner by default."

Sasuke swayed dangerously for a moment, and then staggered back up the stares, where Kakashi was there to grab and stabilize him. "We have to get that seal neutralized, now!" He said, urgently.

"Y… yes." Sasuke croaked out, and then winced as the seal on his neck pulsed an angry purple color for a moment.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, approaching the two, Naruto behind her, looking quizzical.

"Hey, that was a pretty lucky break, your opponent not showing up and all, given how badly you're hurt, eh Sasuke?" Naruto said, laughing and patting the other boy on the back.

"Gsh." Sasuke said, holding back a wince of pain.

"Sorry guys, but I've got to get him to the medical wing." Kakashi lied, leading the boy away. Sakura looked after him for a moment, unsure what to do. 'Ranma, can you tell what's happening?' She asked, worriedly. She really had nowhere else to turn, and it was worth a shot.

Ranma's voice came back from inside of her head, sounding grim. 'I really ain't sure.' She admitted. 'It's like his aura's bein… twisted. Every time somethin goes through that seal thing on his neck, it gets darker, more negative. Probly hurts like hell, and it can't be doin his mind much good, either.'

'What do you mean?' Sakura asked, suddenly going pale.

'How your chi flows tells a lot about how your body and mind are workin.' Ranma explained. 'I'm not as good at the theory as some of the people I knew, but basically, dark chi like that'll slowly start twistin his mind 'till all he can think about are angry and depressing thoughts.'

"Sakura, are you all right?" Naruto asked, waving one hand in front of the pink haired girl's face.

"N… No, Naruto, I'm not." She admitted, looking after Sasuke.

HR.

"Somehow, I don't think this was what Lord Orochimaru had in mind, but it'll have to do." Kabuto said, sitting placidly on top of a tied up Dosu, who was blissfully knocked unconscious.

He'd known that by this time, Sasuke was likely so incapacitated by the seal that there was no way he would win convincingly, and had only thought of this one way to get the boy through to the finals. It would deprive Orochimaru of some demonstrations of the boy's prowess, but it really couldn't be helped.

"Kabuto, what are you doing?" came a very familiar voice, and the sound spy gulped, turning slowly to see the leader of the Sound team, whose face Orochimaru wore.

"L… Lord Orochimaru, I…" He started, his composure slipping slightly as sweat began to role down his brow.

"I will deal with you and this idiot later." Orochimaru dismissed, turning. "I came to tell you to get him out of here, I have something to do and I don't need you two caught."

"Yes, Lord Orochimaru." Kabuto said, sighing in relief. A short reprieve was still a reprieve, and he could always hope that the man found his skills as a medic-nin too valuable to destroy him. "This just isn't my week." He muttered, after his boss left, as he hoisted the comatose Dosu over his shoulder.

HR.

"That… had to hurt." Naruto winced, as Kiba slammed into the arena wall for the twelfth time in as many minutes.

"Now, to ensure that you stay down!" Zaku growled, pointing the hand that had formerly been in a cast at the half-transformed dogboy. Nearby, Akamaru lay unconscious, a nasty looking gash running down the diminutive animal's side.

"I think that's enough." A stern, female voice said as a black haired woman jumped down into the ring. "He's down."

"But, I…" Kiba said, trying to force himself to his feet, but then collapsing as soon as he got one leg under himself.

"Kiba, stay down. You did well." Kurenai said, turning to her student.

The boy was about to protest, when he just fell forward, the massive injuries he'd taken in the battle finally catching up with him. "Get the medics in here!" She barked. "And an Inuzuka to take care of the dog."

Nearby, Zaku snorted. "Was hoping I could kill 'im." He sneered, and then walked out of the arena and up the stairs to the observation area. Kurenai glared daggers at his back, and wished she could hit him with the Hell Viewing technique, but it'd probably get her reprimanded for a year, or stripped of her position. "Just get the next one out here." She said, and leaned against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Next up, is Temari Vs. Neji Hyuga." Hayate announced, haltingly.

Neji immediately jumped down from where he had been standing next to TenTen, who was now going to see if Kiba was all right, generally looking unworried. "All right, let's get this over with." He said, activating his Byakugan with only a thought as he squared off against the blonde haired woman.

"My sentiments exactly." She replied, nodding at him.

Hayate looked at the two for a moment, and then announced, "Begin."

Immediately, Neji was moving, charging at his foe to put her down with the gentle fist. Much to his surprise, she was ready for him, as she unslung what had looked like an unusually thick pole from her back, unfurling it to reveal a large fan with a moon patterned on it.

"A fan?" Naruto asked, shocked.

"You've got to be kidding!" Sakura continued.

'Don't be so sure. I've seen some really mean things done with a giant spatula.' Ranma broke in.

'A giant… you know, you're just weird.' Sakura decided, before going back to watching the combat.

Immediately as Neji was about to come into contact with Temari, she swept down with her fan, somehow producing a massive gust of wind that sent the Hyuga flipping backwards. He easily caught himself on one hand, steadying himself on his feet, but he'd definitely been surprised.

Seeming to decide that that was a fluke, he charged again, and this time she brought the fan across in an arc, sending out a ripple of air that he barely managed to role under, before it gouged a hole in the wall.

"What…?" Sakura stuttered.

'Vacuum blade.' Ranma replied, instantly. 'She's going for killing blows.'

Sakura's eyes widened. She didn't know Neji terribly well, but she still didn't want to see the guy die.

Temari didn't seem to mind the fact that her vacuum blade had missed, as she swept her fan again, knocking Neji back for a second time.

He grunted in frustration, withdrawing a Kunai from his belt pouch and tossing it at the blonde, who swept her fan again, knocking it aside. This repeated several more times, before Temari sighed. "Is this all you can do?" She asked, impatiently.

"No, it's not." Neji replied, removing yet another Shuriken. Temari tried to bat it away again, but somehow he'd managed to throw it at such an angle that her wind actually caused its course to straighten out towards her, and stab her in the lower arm. She screamed in agony, and moved her other hand to clutch her arm, which was when Neji moved to capitalize on the opening.

This proved to be a mistake, as she moved the clutching hand to pluck the handle of the giant fan from the wounded one, unfurling it suddenly so that it now showed three moons and was triple its original size. "Die!" She roared, pain evident in her voice, as she swung the massive fan again and again, generating gale force winds.

Neji was knocked off of his feet in an instant, and flung back incredibly quickly until he smashed into the wall of the arena. The wind storm went on for about forty-five seconds, before Temari collapsed, panting. Unfortunately, Neji was much worse off, and fell out of a several inch deep indentation in the wall, barely breathing.

The arena fell silent for several minutes, until a group of medic-nin came hurrying out of a passage, scooping Neji onto a stretcher and leaving with him quickly. Seconds later, Hayate popped into existence on the arena floor, looking as if his headband had almost been blown off. "The winner is Temari."

At these words, several ninja's heads poked out of the tunnels they'd been hidden in. All except for Naruto, who had been a bit too slow to get out and was in a pit as deep as Neji's.

"Naruto, are… are you all right?" Sakura asked, uncertainly.

The blond boy groaned for a moment, rolling over where he lay on the ground, and gave the pink haired girl a thumbs up.

Sakura sighed in relief, then scowled. "You idiot, why didn't you get out?!"

"'cuz I wanted to see the fight, of course!" Naruto said, cheerfully.

Sakura sweat dropped, and backed away from the blonde boy carefully. 'That's it, he's insane.' She thought to herself.

'I probably woulda done it, too.' Ranma chipped in.

'You don't count!' Sakura retorted.

'So would I.' Kura-chan said,

Sakura just sighed. "Let's just hope the next opponent doesn't destroy the arena." She muttered.

Across the room, Gaara, another person who had stayed during Temari's little wind storm and been sheltered behind his sand, had the inexplicable urge to sneeze. He didn't, though. He did, however, start using his sand to drift down to the arena floor. He knew that he was one of the last two competitors left, and the sand was calling for blood. He'd had a hard time not just jumping in in the middle of someone else's fight, but had managed to control himself, barely.

"This is my fight?" He asked, looking over at Hayate.

The ailing Ninja nodded. "Vs. Kin Tsuchi."

"Me… against Gaara?" Said woman asked, her skin going pale. She knew at least a little about Gaara of the sand, the holder of the one tailed Tanuki. What she knew wasn't pleasant. Then again, she also knew that Orochimaru would probably kill her and hang the remains up on a wall if she ran now. It was a hard choice, but she supposed that Gaara's Sand Coffin was a much more quick way to die, if a bit more agonizing.

Stepping into the ring with a rather fatalistic attitude, she nonetheless got her needles and bells ready for combat.

"Try to make this entertaining." Gaara said, darkly, standing still across from her.

Kin shrugged, and as Hayate said "begin!" She leapt backwards, somersaulting several times to avoid any attack Gaara would launch to begin the battle. Strangely enough, he didn't attack at all, simply standing there, though the gourd on his back seemed to force its top off, disgoarging a large amount of sand that settled around his feet.

Frowning, Kin threw some of her needles, which neatly stuck in Gaara's skin about an eighth of an inch. "Hmm." The Sand Ninja said, and suddenly the sand at his feet formed into a wave, rushing towards Kin.

The Sound Nin jumped out of the way, throwing more needles, this time with bells on them. Much like they had before, they hit Gaara, who didn't seem to even try and block them. Raising one arm, where one of the needles with a bell on it was dangling, he studied it and flicked the bell.

Still, even as he did this, the sand around him roiled and tried to assault the desperately dodging kunoichi. Deciding to stop playing around, she pulled the strings that were connected to her bells in a very specific order, assuring a special resonance, reinforced by her chakra, to be set up.

It worked as she had expected, and Gaara stopped moving completely, his eyes wide in surprise. "This," She said proudly as the sand stopped dead in its tracks, "Is my ultimate attack. It paralyzes you, and then triggers hallucinations in your brain through vibrations on your inner and outer ear. Now, you undoubtedly see dozens of me, and I can continue attacking without reprisal."

"You're right about one thing." Gaara said, smirking slightly. "I see dozens of you."

"What?" She asked, as a huge mass of sand seemed to form, raising to the sky several feet to all sides of her, and closing in until it was only the size of a person.

"But I can attack you easily enough." Gaara continued. "And you're pathetic, goodbye."

Kin gasped as she felt the coffin of sand technique begin to slowly crush her, and desperately tugged on the few strings that were still intact and connected to her in-spite of the sand shell. The technique she was about to try was very experimental, and had never worked before, but she was about to die anyways. As she pulled the last bell, the compression of the coffin suddenly stopped, and Gaara's eyes widened.

"Wh… what?" The Sand Ninja stuttered, as he suddenly started to feel ten times more tired than normal. This was saying something, as Gaara regularly spent months awake, to keep Shikoku from destroying his mind while he slept. Eyes widening, he realized what was going on. "No, you fool!" He cried, his calm, yet homicidal, facade crumbling. "What have you…" The boy never managed to finish the statement, as his eyes closed first, and everything in the arena abruptly went to hell.

END.

Okay, given I just did a totally re-shuffled Chunin exam prelim, and had some really odd matchups, I'm likely going to get flamed. "How could Neji lose so pathetically!?" "Why didn't Sasuke fight!?" "Why didn't you show Naruto's match?!"

All I can say is, the fights were generated through a Random Number Generater. Yes, that means if I'd gotten Sakura V. Gaara, I would have done it, and it wouldn't have been pretty. Once I had the matchups, I honestly wrote them how I felt they would go given the data I have.

As for Naruto's, I was absolutely positive I didn't have the skill to write the massive ninja clones v. traps and puppets war that would have happened, and I didn't want to ruin a good chapter by trying.

Sasuke missing his match was part of his character arc and how I think the cursed seals work. Given it was speeding up in screwing him over, by that point he would be hard pressed to beat a three year old, and I really wanted him in the finals.

As for Neji... really, unless you've got certain abilities, being against Temari = screwed. For a mostly HTH fighter like Neji, she's a nightmare.

Now, shutting up. Please, tell me what you think, though I'm sorry if I don't respond quickly.

Have a happy holiday!


	5. Chapter 4: Defense of the Leaf

Warning: This chapter was written on a borrowed computer with tiny font, and my final read was not nearly as complete as I'd like. Also, I do not have my research materials here, and the net's even kinda hard to search.

Having made all of my excuses, I still hope that this chapter is up to par, or at least not that far over.

Chapter 4, Defense of the Leaf.

For several moments, the Third Exam Preliminary Arena was strangely silent, the red haired Sand Ninja laying face down in its middle. The only sound that could be heard was the panicked footsteps of his blonde haired teammate, as she grabbed the still unconscious puppet master and started running.

Hayate had just teleported to the middle of the arena, preparatory to declaring Kin the winner of the match, when the ground around Gaara's form exploded up in a massive column of sand. Hayate quickly teleported away, but Kin merely stood, having been released from her sand coffin when her enemy had passed out, and gaped at what was happening.

The column that had engulfed her opponent was pulsing, sending small lashing blades of sand out of itself at regular intervals, the first of which she easily jumped over. "Damn, what now?" She asked, and was answered as it collapsed down into a more horizontally oriented shape, which quickly began growing outward.

The spectators were surprised when the Sound Ninja back flipped into the stands, but quickly realized what was happening when a tidal wave of sand impacted with the wall, and continued to push.

"Hey, we've gotta get out of here!" Choji exclaimed, fearfully. Beside him, both Shikamaru and Ino nodded, and the three started for the exit. The other Chunin teams followed them, all except for Naruto, who was still standing at the side-lines and looking on in interest.

"Naruto, what are you doing?!" Sakura demanded, looking in from the door.

'We gunna get 'im?' Ranma's voice asked, and Sakura noticed that the redhead sounded worried. The pink haired girl was about to reply, when a massive head formed from the ever-expanding mass of sand, lashing out and biting the orange jacketed boy in half.

"Naruto!" She called, horrified, before the body vanished in a puff of white smoke.

"Come on, we have to leave!" Sakura heard the scratchy voice of the boy beside her, and held back the desire to smack him over the head for being an idiot as she turned to run.

HR.

"Lord Hokage, something is happening at Training Ground 44!" The Third cursed, turning from his rapid progress towards the sealing room in the medical center as he heard the ANBU guard calling for him.

"What's happened?" He asked. He wanted to get to the sealing room quickly, as he'd gotten a report from Anko that Orochimaru was attacking Kakashi and Sasuke there.

"I… I don't know." The ANBU said, a very uncharacteristic stutter in his voice. "There's a tailed beast, or something, it's forming out of sand!"

The Hokage turned quickly, far faster than his old frame would suggest was possible, and studied the horizon in the direction of Training Ground 44. He couldn't see anything at the moment, but had a sneaking suspicion of what was going on.

For a moment, he'd thought it may have been the seal that Kakashi had discovered on the Haruno girl, but then he'd heard that the demon was made of sand. "Shokaku." He mumbled, and cursed himself for not at least attempting to forbid Gaara from entering the exam.

Jumping upward to a roof, the old man made several hand-seals, and his white robes vanished to be replaced with a set of black and red armor, loosely patterned off of a Samurai's.

Behind him, he heard the ANBU hurrying to keep up, but ignored him for the moment as he made best possible speed for the training grounds.

HR.

'Jump, now!' Ranma's mental voice echoed through Sakura's head, and she found herself obeying without thought, catapulting herself upwards as she and Naruto broke from the gates of the tower in the middle of the forest of death. She was quite glad that she'd acted so quickly, as a massive gout of sand blasted past under her, catching Naruto in the back.

She bounced off of the top of the river of rushing grains, her chakra control training serving her well, and winced as she saw the blonde haired boy impact a rock up ahead. She hoped that his seemingly miraculous healing abilities would stand him in good stead, as she looked around the area.

The ground nearby was littered with frantically scrambling Ninja, both Genin and Jounin Sensei, who had evacuated. She couldn't see Sasuke or Kakashi, but thought that they were likely back at the hospital in the village.

Turning and springing off of the sand, she landed next to the rock where Naruto had been flung, and stared back to see that the tower was spilling sand from every window and door on the first floor, and there were loud, ominous cracking sounds coming from it.

Most of the Ninja nearby, especially those of the leaf, were turning to face the building, getting ready for whatever would come.

"What's happening?" Came Naruto's voice, as the boy had finally pulled himself to his feet next to Sakura.

"If I'm right, it's a tailed beast." Came the familiar voice of Iruka-Sensei, the man himself appearing in a swirl of leaves before the two. "Now, you two, get out of here. I saw your Sensei wasn't around, so I thought I'd get you to safety."

"But Iruka-Sensei, what about…" Naruto started.

"Leave, now!" The older man barked, speaking more harshly than he ever had. Seeing the two's looks of surprise, the man shook his head. "If this is a tailed beast… just trust me, you two have to leave."

"Yes, Sensei." Sakura said, noticing that the man's eyes seemed to become haunted at the mention of the creature. She recognized the name, of course. The Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox that had destroyed the village thirteen years ago, had been one of the tailed beasts.

"But, Sensei…" Naruto started, before being grabbed on one shoulder by Sakura.

"Come on." She demanded, and as the two leapt off, the tower gave one last massive crack of shattering stone, and seemed to collapse into itself. As they leapt into the trees and Sakura took one last glance over her shoulder, she was shocked to see what looked like a giant sand statue of a vicious animal, but its head and legs were moving, pulling itself out of the crater where the arena had been in the base of the tower and letting massive chunks of debris roll off of its back like they weren't even there.

Suddenly, the pink haired girl understood more than she had ever before the fear that the village held for the Nine-Tailed Fox's return. 'I've… only felt something like that once before.' Came Ranma's rather subdued voice.

Sakura almost stumbled in her run through the trees as she received the data that Ranma's chi sense had collected. She had been able to feel something from Gaara, earlier, but hadn't been able to understand what it was. This, though, was clearly evident even to one of her limited energy reading ability, as pure, unrefined hatred.

'You've felt this before?' Sakura asked Ranma, confused.

'Yeah…' Ranma returned, reluctantly. 'Feels exactly like what Cologne did, when she killed me. Or at least, almost exactly like it.'

'I…' Sakura started, but was interrupted before she could think of something to say as Naruto spoke up excitedly.

"Hey, isn't that the old man?!" The blonde haired boy asked, and Sakura looked around, seeing a ninja in ceremonial looking black armor dashing through the trees in the other direction, towards the demon.

She couldn't really tell who it was, but then, she knew that Naruto saw the Hokage a lot more often than she did, for one reason or another. "I don't know, it could be." She said, as several ANBU leapt past behind the man.

"Wow, if even the Old Man's going to fight this thing, maybe we should turn back and help!" the boy said.

"Naruto, that's a tailed beast, we won't stand a chance!" Sakura objected. "We should leave it to the older Ninja."

Naruto was about to nod, when the two heard a tremendous explosion, and looked backwards to see a massive pillar of sand exploding into the air. At its top could be seen a massive ball of some sort. "Is that…" The orange clad boy asked, shocked.

"…Choji?" Sakura gasped.

"There are still other Genin back there…" Naruto said, and his expression firmed. "I'm going back to help."

"What?" Sakura demanded.

"If that's a tailed beast…" Naruto said, and then a look seemed to come into his eyes that Sakura couldn't figure out. "I have to stop it from hurting the people of this village. Now, are you coming?"

Sakura didn't know what the look in the boy's eyes meant, but it unsettled her deeply. "Yes, I'm coming." She decided, and the two re-directed their dash through the tree line, headed right for the battle site.

HR.

"Damn, where is he?" Kakashi Hatake stood on a rooftop in the middle of Konoha, his Sharingan eye active and scanning through the horizon rapidly in order to find the one he had been chasing.

Orochimaru had infiltrated deeply into the village, as far as into the sealing chamber under the hospital where the Copy Ninja had placed the block on Sasuke's cursed seal, and had attempted to capture the young Uchiha there. Strangely, he hadn't seemed to hold and fight for too long after being confronted by Kakashi, but had run in stead, leading him through the city.

Kakashi didn't really want to think about why that was at the moment. All he wanted to do was capture the Missing Nin who had killed several of the hunter teams that had been sent out after him, but so far he was having no success.

As his eye turned once more, the grey haired Ninja's unmodified eye widened at what he saw coming from the Chunin Exam Arena. There was a massive buildup of demonic chakra there, and he could no longer see the tower. "What in the…" He breathed.

He was about to turn away and resume looking for Orochimaru, when a huge spout of sand gushed into the air, and he could see one of the Genin at its top. "Damn it." He muttered, and started for the field as quickly as he could.

Nearby, in the shadows and covered in several techniques that he believed would shield against the Sharingan's observational ability, Orochimaru's mouth turned down in a frown. Something was happening, and if the demonic chakra he could feel was any indication, it was happening far too soon.

Softly, the snake Sannin hissed several imprecations against the ancestry of Gaara of the Sand under his breath. This marked the final failure of his plans for this day, and the only thing that had gone correctly was the initial sealing of Sasuke.

It looked like he would have to come up with some new plans.

HR.

"That was stupid!" Ino said, as she stood beside Choji. The large boy lay on the ground, looking as if he'd gone ten rounds with an energetic Lee, no breaks allowed.

"Hey, I saved your life, didn't I?" Choji said, and would have puffed out his chest if he were capable.

"And almost got yourself killed." Shikamaru said, from next to both of them, as the three stood at the edge of the clearing that had formerly held the tower. In its middle stood one of the scariest things any of them had ever seen. It was a large, sandy shape that roughly took the form of a Tanuki, and there were at least ten Jounin dashing around it, throwing everything they had at it, while it shrugged their blows off as if they were nothing.

"We've got to get out of here." The Lazy Nin announced, as he studied the arc of his own Jounin instructor's thrown projectiles, bouncing off of the sand as if they'd never existed.

"We can't." Ino said, her eyes starting to look panicked. "Choji can't move, and he's too heavy for either of us to carry out of here."

"Hey, are you callin' me fat?!" The boy with the odd hairstyle demanded, though his heart didn't seem in the objection. "You two… can leave me here."

Shikamaru snorted. "Explaining it to Sarutobi-Sensei would be too much of a pain.": He said, getting into a defensive stance. "Besides, I'm sure that thing's too busy to worry about us, as long as we don't draw attention."

"Here's hoping." Ino said, worriedly, as she tended Choji's injuries. For the fifth time in the past minute, she cursed herself for not being able to get out before the damned thing's massive tail had almost knocked her into next Tuesday, but that wasn't important right now.

HR.

It took Naruto and Sakura several minutes to return to the site of the battle with the tailed beast, and by that time the ground where the tower had been seemed unrecognizable. There had been Jutsu of every element tossed around, reducing the wreckage of the building to dirt, and there were even massive glass constructs from where parts of the demon's body had been super-heated. Still, this was apparently not slowing the thing down, as it swung a paw through the air, knocking Kurenai flying across the greatly expanded clearing.

None of her students were still around, as Kiba and Shino had been taken to the hospital, and Hinata had accompanied the former with a healing salve. As a result, she'd been one of the first into battle, and with her mostly illusion Jutsu, one of the first to fall.

Still, as soon as she was down, a new combatant joined the battle, in the form of the Hokage's giant monkey summon, Enma. It seemed to catch the Jounin as an off-hand motion, dashing at the opponent afterward and jumping at its head. Still, even with its great mass, Enma seemed small compared to the demon.

"Holy…" Naruto said, as the two Genin landed on a tree branch at the edge of the carnage.

'This fight's a little too large scale for you two.' Sakura heard Ranma's voice.

'Yeah, I know.' She said, trying to conceal the fear in her response, which was a rather futile gesture since Ranma could feel it. "This was a bad idea." She said aloud, directing it to Naruto.

Naruto didn't respond, looking around the battlefield. He sighed in relief when he saw that Ino, Shikamaru and Choji looked mostly all right, but then his eyes popped wide as he noticed that there was a body laying much closer to the battle. "Is that… Iruka-Sensei!" He called, horrified, and jumped off the branch without thought.

"Naruto, wait!" Sakura called, though the gesture was futile. The boy was tearing across the distance between himself and the first person other than the Hokage to be nice to him faster than she thought was possible.

As he reached the older man, however, Naruto didn't scoop him up and keep going. He stopped, kneeling to examine the other. This was just one of many mistakes that had been made in this fight, starting with Kin putting Gaara to sleep in the first place, but it was one that put the boy in great danger, as one foot of the wildly flailing Tanuki demon started down to crush the two into a bloody paste.

"No!" Sakura screamed, as she saw her teammates death looming before her. She didn't think, or even feel what happened next. Her body just acted, as Ranma took control, pushing off of the tree limb she was standing on with all of her might.

""Kijin Raishu Dan!" The pink haired girl screamed, moving her hand through the air at blinding speed. Instantly, a blade of nothingness took shape, racing forward and slicing deeply into the sand-crafted foot that was aimed at the two helpless Ninja.

Unlike most of the other attacks that had hit it, this one seemed to enrage the Tanuki, as it rolled sideways, almost crushing Enma in the process, and came up facing the young Genin.

As the thing flung itself forward, and Ranma threw herself backwards to escape its jaws, she cursed. 'This doesn't look good.' She thought, gulping.

Sakura bit back the sarcastic remark she wanted to make, but Ranma could feel the sentiment rolling over her mind, as well as a deep sense of fear. She couldn't blame the young girl for feeling the sensation. After all, though she was a Ninja she was still pretty young, but it was distracting in the extreme.

Rolling sideways once again, Ranma this time was only missed by inches as a sand-formed claw passed her side. Leaping to her feet, she threw a Moko-Takabisha rather than a vacuum blade this time, and then immediately wished that she hadn't.

Sakura's full-body variant of the technique earlier, plus the energy that they'd been using to keep themselves on their feet throughout the exams, had depleted her Chi reserves dramatically, and though she'd originally used the Kijin Raishu Dan in desperation, now it was the most energy efficient chi attack she had.

'Sorry, old man.' She thought to herself. 'Sorry, Ryu.'

'Wha…?' Sakura asked, before her body exploded into motion.

'Kijin Gun-Dai Ran Bu!' Ranma exclaimed, and began pumping out the blades of air as quickly as she could.

HR.

"That is amazing for a Genin of her level." For once in the past fifteen years, the third Hokage of the leaf was truly surprised by a Genin. Oh, he'd seen them pull off much more impressive attacks than the Haruno girl was now, but he'd assumed that her power level was rather firmly understood.

"It's also very temporary." Came Kakashi's voice from next to the old man, the grey haired Jounin staring at the girl who was holding off the Ichibi with dozens of air blades. "She's depleting her Stamina at an alarming rate, but she seems to be completely ignoring her already mixed Chakra."

"How long can the girl keep it up?" Sarutobi asked, his brow furrowing under the hat of his battle armor.

"Another minute, at most." Kakashi returned. "Also… that seal on her stomach, now that I know what to look for, is very active right now."

The Hokage grunted. "Yes, but she is buying us the time we need. If you can, help take some of the demon's attention off of her."

Kakashi looked at the old man sharply, and noticed a set of hand seals forming. "You… you can't." He stuttered, realizing what the other man was doing.

"Yes, I can." The Hokage returned. "Now that was an order. Get moving."

"Yes, sir." Kakashi returned, and disappeared in a puff of smoke to join the force that was battling the demon. The Hokage didn't seem to notice, steadily moving through hand seals and mumbling under his breath.

HR.

'Sakura…' The pink haired girl was shocked as she heard the weakness in Ranma's mental voice. She was sitting inside of her own mind, an observer to her own body's desperate struggle to keep alive and ahead of the jaws of the Tanuki.

'Ranma?' She asked, hating the quaver of fear that entered her voice.

'I… I can't keep this up much longer.' Ranma replied. 'I'm running out of energy, and if I turn and try to run, it'll get us in the back before we make it out.'

'I… understand.' Sakura returned. For this moment, she swallowed her fear, and looked from her own eyes at the doom that was approaching. The world seemed to flicker red for a moment, and she got a little faster, but she could feel their energy draining as a hand came down, releasing yet another blade of air that sliced a paw off of the beastly Tanuki.

'That's the last projectile.' Ranma reported, and they started backpedaling frantically, though they knew it wouldn't be enough. As the paw of the Tanuki reformed and swung out for them again, a shadow seemed to dart from nowhere, connecting with it. It stopped for a fraction of a second, just long enough for a huge, spherical object to bound into it, exploding it into powder.

"Hey, ugly!" Came the voices of a dozen Narutos in chorus, as they flung themselves at it with Kunai at the ready.

"Wha…" Ranma stuttered, unsure of what was going on.

"We're getting you out of here." A female voice responded, right next to their ear, as Ino grabbed the pink haired girl in a fireman's carry, vaulting into a tree near the clearing.

Choji barreled through the trees behind them, and the twelve Naruto vanished into a puff of smoke as the Tanuki raked a claw across them, but it had been enough to get her out, and seconds later, a massive beam of Chakra emanated from nearby, smashing into the Tanuki's head.

The one tailed beast let out a roar, the first of the fight, as its entire body convulsed in agony for a moment, before falling to dust. In the middle of a massive pile of sand where it had once been, Gaara slept, a newly formed seal concealed under his shirt.

END.

Um, wow... I think I can hear the Naruto timeline screaming in agony as I type this. I'm also deeply worried about old silly hat, for reasons some readers may be able to pick up.

Please, R&R, and I hope you enjoyed


	6. Chapter 5: Information Gathering

Same disclaimers as the last chapter still apply.

Here ya go!

Chapter 5, Information Gathering.

The world was blackness for the young boy, as he waited for the assault to resume. He had no idea why the beast that lay within him had ceased its attack on his mind this time, but it did so occasionally, to try and throw him off guard, and he couldn't let himself relax though he'd been staying vigilant for many years by this point.

"It's all right, son." A voice came from behind the boy, and as he turned, a floor of sand rippled into existence for him to land on, his gourd falling into place as a familiar weight on his back. Much to his surprise, Gaara of the Sand didn't see Shukaku waiting to attack him in his dreams, but an old man in a set of white robes, a triangular hat with the symbol for fire written on it perched over his eyes.

"Who are you?" The red haired boy asked, suspiciously. He didn't think the one tailed demon was intelligent enough to play mind games with him, but he also could not see any other explanation for what had happened.

"Hmm, you must have been distracted during the tournament." The old man said, then chuckled. "Or, you did not care to hear an old man's ramblings. I am the Third Hokage of the Village of the Leaf. I would like to speak with you here, if you will listen."

Gaara frowned. "I don't have time for this." He decided, knowing that it was vitally important that he prepare for the beast's return, or find some way to wake from his sleep. If he did not, the demon would likely have razed wherever he was now to the ground, and gone somewhere else, and though most would be surprised to hear it, especially his siblings, Gaara tended to want as little blood on his hands as he could manage.

Nodding decisively, the Sand Ninja reached out his will, commanding the sand to crush this interloper into his mindscape, and his eyes widened a fraction when nothing happened. "You're confused by the sand not responding, aren't you?" The old man asked, an understanding smile forming on his lips. "Even in your mind, you feel that ability is Shukaku's, and you cannot access his power any longer, at least, not without extra effort."

"What do you mean?!" Gaara demanded, his permanently sleep-ringed eyes narrowing slightly. The Hokage of the leaf didn't respond, merely turning and waving one hand. As he did so, more landscape took shape around the two, forming into a swirling desert area, a massive building standing in its middle. The front of the building was made all of columns, and as Gaara looked between them, he saw the familiar snarling visage of the one tailed Tanuki.

"What?" He asked, confused.

"It is sealed." The Hokage said, and then indicated a rope that was tied between two of the columns. "The release for the seal is there, only usable by you." He frowned at the young boy. "So long as Shukaku is sealed, it shall not attempt to destroy your mind or roam the world when you sleep. Do you understand?"

Gaara's eyes widened again, and he stepped slowly forward, looking into the area beyond the columns, a square, spartan place with several hundred seals etched into the ground and walls. As he approached it, the one-tail lunged forward, snarling and biting, but it crashed into a barrier only inches from the columns, rebounding with a howl of agony.

Gaara looked to the face of the beast, contorted with pain, and began, slowly, to laugh. From behind him the Hokage looked on, his face lit with a smile at the pure sound of the boy's joy, even if distorted through a throat that was more used to howls of rage and evil chuckling.

Feeling a little regretful for what he had to say next, the Hokage spoke. "I will have to leave now." He said, and Gaara's laughter stopped. The boy turned, and looked at the old man in confusion.

"Where…" He asked, quietly.

"The sealing," The Hokage explained, "Is a fatal Jutsu. I am afraid that what you are seeing is the last vestiges of my spirit on this world, before I pass to the next."

"You're… going to die?" The Sand Ninja asked, and for some reason the thought caused his throat to tighten. He had not felt such a reaction in so long that he didn't know really what it meant, but he did not like it and was unsure why the news of one man's death would cause it.

The Hokage nodded, silently. "Then…" Gaara said, the words feeling unfamiliar. "I owe you, I owe you a debt for what you've done for me."

The Hokage smiled. "Just don't release the demon, all right?" He asked, and then chuckled.

"No, something… more." Gaara said.

The Hokage didn't respond, only chuckling again before fading into nothingness. The young boy stood there for several minutes afterward, looking out over the blowing sand, and then back to the demon that had tormented him for all of his life. He wanted to laugh again at seeing the monster battering at empty air and yelping each time it was rebuffed, but his eyes were constantly shedding tears, distorting his vision. "What is this?" He mumbled, and turned away from the cage.

HR.

"Sakura Haruno." The pink haired girl stopped in her tired walk from the entrance of Konoha's main hospital, looking up at the ANBU who now stood before her. "What is it?" She groaned. Normally, she would be much more polite to what was, essentially, one of the village's police, but she'd had one of the most stressful weeks imaginable and she'd just gotten through an argument with the voices in her head, which had ended in even Ranma admitting that she deserved some rest at home before they started training.

"You are to be taken into custody." The ANBU said, stone-faced.

"What?" Sakura asked, confused. "I'll do my debriefing later, I need to get home to rest or I won't be able to think straight." She tried to walk past the ANBU, but the man's hand lashed out, and he caught the young girl buy the arm. "Hey, wha…" She started, but was cut off as the man pulled her towards himself, placing a set of Chakra restraints around her hands. 'What's happening?' She thought, suddenly worried.

'Looks like we're being arrested.' Ranma contributed. 'Dunno what we did, though.'

'…Arrested?' Sakura asked, nervously. 'But, why?' Then, she seemed to realize something. 'Mom's going to kill me.' She thought, semi-deliriously.

'Look on the bright side.' Ranma contributed. 'They always let ya pass out for a few hours in a jail cell before anything else.'

'Says the voice of experience.' Kura-chan drawled, acidly.

Sakura could practically feel Ranma's shrug. 'My pop was an idiot, all right?' The redhead explained, as the masked ANBU lead the unknowingly squabbling girl off towards the interrogation cells.

HR.

"This isn't what I was expecting." Ibiki Morino mumbled, As he looked through the one-way glass at the pink haired girl who was passed out in the interrogation chair. "We're still pumping in Jiraiya's most raucous singing?"

Next to him, Anko Mitarashi stood chewing on the stick of an already eaten Dango. "Yup, have been for the past two hours." She replied. It seemed a little cruel and unusual to her, but then, this girl was suspected of committing one of the most horrible crimes the leaf village knew. "Kind of hard to believe that she…" The black haired woman started.

"You've seen the seal." Ibiki replied, cutting the other interrogator off.

"Yeah," Anko replied, "but we've got another of those in the village, and Uzumaki's harmless enough."

Ibiki scowled. "Uzumaki didn't total half of training ground 44 and…" He cut himself off. "Let's just go in there and try some more direct methods of waking her up."

Anko nodded, and the two signaled to a third interrogator who was sitting nearby to cut the auditory torture.

As the two Jounin, one special, opened the door to the room and stepped in, they heard the soft and steady breathing of a girl in sleep. "I can't believe she slept through the whole thing." Anko marveled, but Ibiki just grunted in annoyance.

The black haired woman walked to the side of the room, leaning against the wall to watch and give any assistance necessary, as her superior officer stepped up to the pink haired Genin. Normally, he wouldn't bother himself with interrogating someone as low level as she was, but with what had been done…

Anko shook that thought off with difficulty, and looked on as the older man reached out and grabbed Sakura Haruno by the shoulder, shaking her softly. "Wake up." He grunted, and the girl's eyes slowly flickered open.

"Whas happ'nin?" She asked, sleepily, and then winced as she felt several cramps from being secured in the uncomfortable interrogation chair.

"Don't ask questions!" Ibiki snapped, putting his hand on her wrist and emitting a small pulse of Chakra. The girl winced in pain, and her eyes cleared slightly of their sleep fog.

"WH…" She started, and before she could finish, Ibiki had moved to apply the pain technique again. Anko winced, afraid that this was going to happen. Granted, if the girl had done what it was rumored she'd done, she didn't deserve any mercy, but this interrogation was starting off eerily like her own had, over fifteen years earlier, the main interrogator letting his emotions get away from him.

"State your name and place of origin." Ibiki said, sharply.

"I am Sakura Haruno, genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Identification Number 012601." She immediately replied, the interrogation classes that were taught in the academy shining through for a moment. Then, she blinked. "…Ibiki Sensei, what's going… Agh!"

Ibiki ignored the pained cry the girl made as he applied the light pain Jutsu again, and stepped back from her. "You state that, but then you released the tailed beast you're sealing to rampage through the training grounds." He snarled.

Sakura was about to open her mouth in a shocked exclamation of denial, when she remembered the response her comments had gotten in the past. 'Sealed beast?' She thought, wondering where Ranma or Kura-chan were.

'She's passed out right now.' Kura-chan replied, quickly. 'All of her energy was used up against that huge Tanuki.'

Sakura WANTED to curse at this news, but was interrupted by Ibiki's voice. "When did you have a tailed beast sealed within you, and which beast is it?"

"I… I don't know what you're talking about." Sakura said, uncertainly. "I don't have a tailed beast in me… Agh!"

"Do not deny it." The Interrogator barked, and motioned for Anko to bring him something. She immediately obliged, producing an image and walking over to the older man with it. When he showed it to Sakura, the young girl couldn't help but blush.

"Hey, what are you doing with a picture of me naked?!" She asked, indignantly, though she did notice the glowing blue mark on her stomach, which she believed was what the man wished to show her.

Anko couldn't help but laugh at that response, getting a glare from her superior. "You gotta admit, that's not the reaction we were expecting." She contributed, before stepping back.

"Girl, you will tell me what I need to know, and you will do so now." The man with the scarred face said, tossing the image aside. "Now, why did you unleash the tailed beast within you at the tournament."

"I didn't." Sakura said, confused. "I don't have a tailed beast inside of me. There… was one there, a Ninja from the Sand Village let it out somehow, I… Agh!"

"Girl, do you know what that beast caused?" Ibiki asked, after retracting his hand from Sakura's wrist. She didn't respond, looking back at her interrogator with scared, confused eyes. "The Hokage is dead," The man hissed, softly, "And I will know why!"

Sakura's eyes popped as wide as dinner plates. "The Hokage is…" She breathed, her face taking on a pale cast.

"That's right, he died sealing away the demon you unleashed." The Interrogator said. "Now, if you have any loyalty to the Leaf remaining, tell me what you know!"

"But I… I already told you." Sakura stammered. "The Hokage… he's really dead?" She couldn't believe it. She hadn't really known the village leader, obviously, but the kindly old man who still managed to run one of the strongest Hidden Villages on the continent seemed far too tough to have gone down in that battle, especially since she hadn't seen him fighting when the Tanuki had been destroyed.

"We will start this conversation again." Ibiki said, slowly. "You must have figured out that you are being interrogated by now, and I assure you that I'm one of the best around. You will tell me what I want to know… eventually."

"But I…" Sakura started, before Ibiki's hand lashed out again, and this time, the pain was worse.

HR.

"Lord Hokage, I'm sorry but we couldn't stop him!" An ANBU guard yelled, as he charged into the Hokage's office behind the blur that was the orange clad form of Naruto Uzumaki.

From the desk, a man looked up and glared at the ANBU. "Don't call me that." Kakashi Hatake snarled, adjusting his headband slightly. "This position is only temporary."

"I… yes, s…" The ninja started, before being interrupted by Naruto.

"Kakashi Sensei, they're lying, aren't they?" The blonde haired boy demanded, jumping forward from where he'd stopped near the door, and slamming his hands down on the desk. "The Old Man's just off somewhere or something, and the bastards are lying to me again, right?"

Kakashi sighed, and contemplated looking back down to the papers he'd been working on before the two other Ninja had interrupted him, but then, he knew how close the Uzumaki boy and the former Hokage had been, and it would be a disservice to the other man's memory not to take care of this.

"I'm sorry, Naruto." He started. "The Hokage died two days ago while sealing the one tailed Tanuki."

The spiky haired boy stopped fidgeting with his hands on the desk's edge for a moment, before his head fell, his eyes playing over the wood grain. "How… who did it?" He asked, his voice more scratchy than usual.

"Naruto…" The current, and VERY temporary if he had anything to say about it, Hokage said as he looked at the young Ninja before him. "It was an accident. The demon's vessel wasn't nearly as well sealed as you are, and his opponent accidentally triggered the one tail's release."

"Th… Then I'll, I'll…" The orange clad Ninja said, groping for options. He couldn't hold the other demon container, or his opponent responsible. As selfish as it seemed, if the other container was guilty of what his demon did, then what did that mean for Naruto himself? "Kakashi Sensei… what can I do?" He asked, looking desperately up at the older Ninja for guidance.

At this moment, the weight of being a teacher seemed infinitely heavier than that of being Hokage, as the copy Ninja looked into the blue eyes of his student. He knew that, if not given something to occupy his mind, Naruto would do something foolish. If it'd been something like killing Gaara, Kakashi wouldn't have shed too many tears, but that would likely cause war with the Sand village, and was pretty well directly in opposition to the Third's will.

Then, he had an idea. "Naruto, I'm sending a team out to look for some people." He explained. "With what's happened to the village, finding them is very important, and it's a set of orders the Hokage gave in case of his death. I want to assign you to the mission team."

"Really?" The blond haired boy asked, suddenly a lot less desperate seeming.

Kakashi nodded.

"Thank you, Kakashi Sensei!" The boy said, jumping and pumping his fist. "if this was one of the Hokage's last orders, I'll find these people and drag 'em back to the village, even if they're kicking and screaming, believe it!"

"Understood. I'll inform Team 8 that you'll be joining them in a couple days when their injured members recover." The Copy Ninja announced. "This will be considered a B rank mission and you will be paid accordingly."

Naruto nodded and ran out of the office, Kakashi watching after him. He knew that what he'd just done was give the boy an excuse to ignore his grief for the time it would take to hunt down the two remaining Sannin, but he didn't really give a damn at the moment. Sometimes, what a normal person would consider psychologically unhealthy, a Ninja had to do to survive and keep himself from doing something stupid. Looking away from the door and back to his papers, Kakashi was interrupted once more, as a knock came.

"Come in!" He called, slightly relieved that he could put off half a dozen notices from the civilian council for another couple of MINUTES. He raised an eyebrow when Ibiki Morino entered the office, carrying a report. "Can you look over this quickly?" The man asked, handing Kakashi the paper.

The silver haired man was about to tell the other that he was busy, but decided that he may as well look the thing over. When his eyes caught the name "Sakura Haruno" under subject, his attention was caught completely.

As he read down the page, his mouth opened and closed silently a few times. "Why… why in the world would you do this?" He stammered.

"The Hokage's last orders to the Interrogation Section before his death were to ask this girl about a seal mark on her stomach. Then, we received reports of a massive tailed beast destroying training ground 44." Ibiki explained.

Kakashi sighed. "And you assumed that Sakura had something to do with it." He groaned, and slapped his face in exasperation. He'd thought the Intelligence Division had been unusually quiet for the past couple of days, but he hadn't expected a screw-up of this magnitude.

It wasn't exactly Ibiki's fault. After all, the man had gone on what information he'd had at a time when the Hokage was dead and any information could be vital, but something still had to be done. "Come on, we're getting that genin out of there." He snapped.

Ibiki was about to burst out with a comment, but caught himself, reminding himself that he was speaking to the interim fifth Hokage. "Sir, I don't understand." He finally said.

"The Genin you've been poking with pain inducing chakra strikes and implements of torture was one of the main reasons that the tailed beast was captured without anyone other than the former Hokage dying." Kakashi EXPLAINED, unable to keep some heat out of his voice.

The shocked and horrified look on the interrogator's face, though quickly covered up, was quite satisfying to Kakashi's very irritated mood.

HR.

"I am Sakura Haruno, Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Identification Number 012601." Kakashi winced as that was the pink haired girl's response to a simple inquiry into her health. He could see that the girl's green eyes were duller than he'd ever seen them, and could also feel a noticeable chill in the air.

"She's been like this since about five hours into the interrogation. I was coming to you to request a Yamanaka's assistance." Ibiki said, from behind the other Ninja.

Kakashi rubbed his forehead. "I'd say she was paying attention in interrogation classes." He muttered. "Get her out of that chair, and if she'll eat, give her some food. Then I want her in the Hokage's office."

"Yes, sir." Ibiki said, quickly.

HR.

"Hey, you guys!" Naruto Uzumaki called as he ran down a hall on the third floor of the hospital, waving frantically at two Genin and their Jounin Sensei.

"Be quiet, Uzumaki." Shino Aburame hissed, as Hinata Hyuga poked her fingers together nervously at the sight of him.

"Is there a reason you're looking for us, Naruto, or do you charge down halls waving at people often?" Kurenai asked, slightly more amused by the boy's antics than her student.

"Yeah, I came looking for you guys to tell you the news. Kakashi Sensei's assigned me to your team to help hunt down those guys the Hokage wanted found!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Hmm, giving us a replacement for Kiba already?" The woman asked, frowning.

"Replacement?" Naruto replied, peaking around her to see the afore mentioned boy laying in a bed in the room the three were standing in front of. "What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing." Shino snapped, quickly.

"H… his dog, Akamaru." Hinata explained. "He… was very badly injured by Zaku, they aren't sure if he'll be able to go out into the field again."

"Oh man…" Naruto breathed. He knew how close the Inuzuka and their dogs were, and Kiba was uncommonly so with Akamaru. "I didn't know, I'm sorry." He said, his enthusiasm somewhat dimmed again.

"It's fine, we still need a third team member for this mission." Kurenai said, then allowed a small smirk at Hinata, who was looking at the ground.

"Uh, yeah, all right." Naruto said, uncertainly.

HR.

Kakashi stared across his desk at the Kunoichi who, along with Naruto and Sasuke, should have been one of his first priorities after the sealing of the tailed beast. Given that Naruto had staggered in here after two days of pulling his hair out over the Hokage's death, and Sakura had spent the same time being tortured, he fully expected to find out that Sasuke had jumped off a cliff or something due to the cursed mark and he hadn't noticed.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked, knowing that it was a stupid question, especially since the girl's eyes still seemed dull.

"I am Sakura Haruno, Genin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Identification Number 012601." She replied, in a monotone.

"Sakura, it's me, Kakashi." The man said, sighing and rubbing his nose. "The interrogation is over."

"I am not good at detecting Genjutsu." The girl said, flatly. "This could be a trick."

"Sakura…" Kakashi started, and then blinked. "Sakura was the best of the three of you at unraveling Genjutsu, discounting Sasuke's eyes." He said, then uncovered his own Sharingan and studied her. "…but you aren't Sakura, are you?" He finally asked, noting the blue glow of the seal from the girl's Chakra aura.

The girl thought for a moment, and then spoke. "No, I'm not." She answered simply, apparently deciding that that information wasn't critical.

"You're the d… you're whatever was sealed into her." The older man said.

The girl nodded.

"Then where is Sakura?" Kakashi asked.

"She's hidden deep inside of our mind, where she can't feel any pain. We decided on this because my tolerance is much higher than hers and I know mental discipline techniques." The girl replied.

"Emotional suppression?" The older man asked, recalling his own ANBU training.

The pink haired girl nodded.

Kakashi frowned. He wanted to ask this person in front of him who, or what they were, but she'd apparently been through two days of interrogation under false pretenses already. Granted, she would have been questioned regardless, but not nearly this intently. "This will eventually have to be explained," The temporary Hokage said, fixing the girl with his Sharingan eye's stare, "But not right now. I am releasing you to Sakura's family. Will she be re-emerging?"

"Yes," The girl stated, And Kakashi let off a sigh of relief. "That's good. You may leave."

She nodded again, and stood. As she was leaving the room, however, she turned back to him. "I know you will have Ninja watching me." She said, calmly. "When I release the technique I've been using for the past two days, I will be very angry. For his health, and our survival, keep the one who interrogated us off of the observation team, and out of our sight if at all possible."

"…right…" Kakashi said, just a little intimidated by the flashes of anger that he could see behind the glacial calmness in the girl's eyes. "I'll do that." After Sakura, or whoever she was, had exited the office, he rebuked himself for feeling so nervous around one of his own students, but those eyes...

Trying to take his mind off of the conversation he'd just had, the silver haired man picked up one of the reports he'd been so desperately putting off just an hour before.

END.

I've extrapolated a new plotline from the royal hash I've made of the continuity, and decided that, since the timeline has changed so drastically, Naruto will have a pretty good portion of the narrative dedicated to his new path.

Don't worry, Sakura-fans. She's still the lead character, along with Ranma, but given how I've mucked up the main plot, Naruto's probably going to be the secondary character with the most limelight.

Oh, please R*R.

Kiba: YOU KICKED MY DOG!!!

Weebee: Oh shi.... *Runs off*


	7. Chapter 6: Restructuring

(Weebee is hiding under what looks to be a wooden porch, clutching a handful of papers.)

Hey guys. I've gotten away from Kiba for a while. Got me this here chapter for you to take a look at.

(Weebee holds out papers.)

Here, take it! Now get lost before he sees you and comes to see what you're looking at!

(Jonakhensu casually nails a nice, juicy steak to the porch and walks away.)

Chapter 6, Restructuring.

When Sakura woke, it was to the comforting sensation of her own bed, her eyes on a direct line to the window that looked out on one of Konoha's main streets. For a moment she stretched, not seeing anything wrong with this situation, and then the memories hit. Memories of hours of questioning on subjects that she had no idea about, before Ranma and Kura-chan managed to pull her back from the awareness of what was happening.

"What…?" She asked, slowly, as she sat up and crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing them in remembrance of the burning pain that had run down every nerve by the end.

'Glad to see you're finally awake.' Ranma returned. 'Thought maybe we didn't pull you back in time and that bastard'd driven ya insane.'

'Not quite,' Sakura thought, 'but how did we get home?'

'Your old teacher, the one with the eye,' Ranma explained. 'Guy said it was all some big mistake.'

"Mistake?!" Sakura blurted out, her voice rising a lot higher than she wanted it to. "We were held and tortured for… how long?"

'Almost two days.' Kura-chan chipped in.

"…Almost two days… as a mistake?!" Sakura really wasn't sure how she wanted to react to this information. Ever since she first entered the academy, she had known that it was possible you would be captured. In fact, on certain missions and in certain regions, it was encouraged to kill yourself instead, so that you didn't have to go through interrogation. She had never expected, however, that it would be from her own village's intelligence squad.

This shook her faith in said squad quite a bit, and the idea that she'd been held for two days due to a mistake was horrifying.

For a moment, the pink haired girl just looked out the window, her mind in turmoil, before she heard the door to her room slide open. Turning her head, she found a welcome distraction in the form of a worried looking brown haired woman entering and carrying a tray of food. "Sakura, I'm so glad you're awake!" The woman exclaimed, then dropped her tray on a table next to the door.

Sakura's still slightly foggy brain was trying to parse this when her mother grabbed onto her and hugged her tightly. Unlike Ranma, who she could actually hear nervously humming in the background, Sakura knew how to respond to such an event, and returned the hug. "Mom, what's wrong?" She asked, confused.

Her mother didn't reply, but Kura-chan did. 'The idiot over here came into the house under an emotional control technique. She couldn't act like you at the best of times, and it probably seemed like you were a walking zombie or something.'

'Yeah, and you woulda wanted me to lower it and do what I did to the dojo to somethin' real?' Ranma returned.

Inner Sakura was oddly silent for a moment. 'You know, destroying part of our mind in a fit of rage really can't be healthy…' She mumbled, but Ranma chose to ignore it, and by this time Ms. Haruno had recovered and let her daughter go.

"Mom, how long was I asleep?" Sakura asked.

"Almost a full day." The older woman said, and then walked over and retrieved the tray of food from near the door. "I've had this prepared for the last few hours."

Sakura looked into the bowl, and grimaced at what she saw. Whenever she'd been sick, her mother had always concocted a broth from a secret family recipe she knew. It was effective in bringing the younger girl back to health, but it tasted roughly the same as raw sewage. Urg…" She grimaced.

"Eat!" Her mother commanded, sternly, and as Sakura took a sip from the bowl, she continued. "Can you tell me what happened and why your best dress was returned to me in tatters, or is it some sort of classified Ninja mission?"

'I don't know, is it classified?' Sakura thought.

'Do ya wanna tell yer mom you were almost eaten by a giant raccoon dog?' Ranma returned.

"Sorry, yeah, I was told not to tell anyone." Sakura returned, after only seconds processing that statement.

The brown haired woman frowned darkly. "If your father were still alive…" She started, wistfully, "I'd slap him upside the head for allowing you to go to that Ninja academy!"

"Um…" Sakura said, uncertainly.

Her mother just shook her head and sighed, before turning and leaving the room, leaving her to ponder her own situation once again.

'So, what are we going to do now?' She asked, finally.

'Well, near as I can tell, we're gunna have to tell Kakashi 'bout me pretty soon. Could be a good idea ta find a way to explain that.' Ranma offered, knowing that if she were to try and explain it herself, she would likely say something that would get them both killed or imprisoned, purely by accident.

Sakura frowned. '…why do we have to tell Kakashi-sensei?' She asked.

'He's the new Hokage, I think.' Ranma replied.

Sakura face-faulted, and upon drawing herself back to her feet, she shook her head. 'I should be able to think of a way to explain it before he calls us back.' She assured, 'but what do we do until then?'

'Isn't that obvious?' Ranma asked, and then when she didn't get any response from the other two, she continued, 'We train! oh, and I wanted ta find Uzumaki, see if he could arrange a few pranks on someone…'

'Does she chuckle like that often?' Sakura asked, listening to the sound of Ranma's evil laughter in her head.

'This is as new to me as it is to you, and it scares me totally.' Kura-chan responded.

HR.

"This is down-right creepy." A boy in a black costume that covered everything but his face and hands complained, as he gazed down at another boy, this one with red hair, that lay in a bed nearby.

"I don't know," A blonde haired woman who was leaning against a wall said, waving a small fan in front of her face. "It's kind of nice seeing him so peaceful."

"Yeah, you get no argument from me, but it's just… unnatural." The black haired boy returned, shuddering slightly.

"Temari sighed in exasperation at her brother. "Kankuro, the leaf medics explained it to us. The demon isn't going to burst free and start slaughtering, that's one of the most powerful seals in existence and has been suppressing the Nine-tails for twelve years."

"Maybe, but…" Kankuro returned, and was cut off by Temari.

"But nothing, would you come in, already?" The blonde asked, annoyed.

The black haired boy sighed, before slumping to the ground and rolling up into a white binding. Seconds later, another boy who looked much the same, though with more animated seeming features, peaked around the corner and then quickly walked in, trying to pretend that he wasn't nervous.

"There, now was that so hard?" Temari asked, trying to hold back a chuckle. It was odd, how the two siblings had reacted to the sealing of their brother's demon. To Temari herself, it was an event that relieved an immeasurable amount of stress, and meant that it was possible to be around Gaara without worry of him going too psychotic. This, naturally, relaxed the wind user exponentially.

To Kankuro, though, the event seemed to increase his suspicions, as if he absolutely knew that an event this good was far too good to be true. It made him even more stand-offish and jumpy than usual, and he'd considered going with their Jounin Sensei, Baki, back to the Sand village to give a report before Temari had put a stop to that plan.

"So, how long until he wakes up?" The boy asked, walking over to the edge of the bed and ever-so-briefly laying a hand on his brother's head.

"They don't know." Temari said, reiterating what she'd been told for the fifth time. "They say this technique is usually performed on infants, and they usually sleep for over a week."

"Oh, great. So that means…" Kankuro started, before, suddenly, a hand rose from the bed and grabbed him by the arm. Temari would tease him about the expression on his face for the next several years, especially given how contorted it got when he looked down to see his brother's black ringed eyes open and looking up at him. "Hello." Gaara said, deadpan.

"H… hello." Kankuro said, uncertainly.

The three remained in position for several minutes, Gaara still holding Kankuro's arm in a death grip. Gaara stared fixedly at the room's dull white wall for several minutes, while Kankuro looked progressively more uncomfortable with the grip the red haired boy had on his arm.

The puppet master's arm was just starting to go a little numb, when Gaara's eyes snapped away from the wall, and briefly met both of the other Ninjas' worried faces, and he started grinning like an idiot.

"Gaara?" Temari asked.

"He was telling the truth?" Gaara asked, mystifying both of his siblings. Raising his free hand, he looked down on it, and then returned his eyes to the other Ninja. "I don't hear it anymore." He said, and his deadpan tone seemed to have broken a little. "The urge to kill… is gone."

"Um, that's great, Gaara, but…" Kankuro said, nervously. "Can you… let go of my arm?"

"Oh," Gaara said, realizing what he was doing. "I apologize."

Kankuro gaped at his brother, and even Temari was a little surprised. "What…" The black clad boy asked, and then shut his mouth, deciding that though things were getting decidedly weird, so far it had been a good thing.

"Temari?" Gaara asked, causing the blonde woman to look towards him. "Could you get all the information you can on the Third Hokage?"

"Yes, sure." The wind user said, walking for the door.

"Yeah, I'll go with her." Kankuro quickly offered, leaving the room himself.

"No!" Gaara said, loudly, causing his brother to stop in his tracks. "…I… could you stay here?" For a moment, Kankuro saw the look of a little brother, afraid of being left alone in an unfamiliar place, in Gaara's dark ringed eyes, but that couldn't be right, could it?

HR.

'All right, like I said before. Ignore your Chakra sense, and try to get the rabbit under that tree.' Ranma said, as Sakura stood in a small forest training ground where Team 7 had tried to get a set of bells from their Sensei months earlier.

'I know, all right?' Sakura snarled, trying to concentrate on the energy that Ranma manipulated, and that she had only used once before. It was very hard to do, and was ironically made more difficult when she wasn't under pressure, and therefore motivated to do it. Even so, eventually she started to feel something similar to her Chakra sense, though it filled the entire terrain around her, from the blades of grass to the trees, and even rocks.

She felt that if she refined this sense more, she could even use it in stead of sight, but that wasn't exactly what she was trying at the moment. Turning her attention towards the tree Kakashi had been leaning against during that exercise, she felt something, and her hand blurred out with the Kunai that was in it long before she could realize that rabbits weren't supposed to be sitting in branches four meters off the ground.

"Hey, watch it!" Came an indignant female voice, and Sakura's eyes flew open to see a dark haired woman in a trench coat and a black chain undershirt, balanced on one hand as the handle of the thrown Kunai protruded from the branch where she'd quite evidently been sitting.

"Who…" Sakura asked.

'Throw another one!' Inner Sakura urged, angrily. 'She was there during Ibiki Sensei's little interrogation session!'

'Yeah, so we attack her now and get ourselves declared missing nin.' Ranma returned. 'My guess is they sent her here to watch us.'

"Are you here to watch me?" Sakura asked, giving voice to Ranma's suspicion.

Anko Mitarashi smirked, then allowed herself to drop to the ground. "Sharp kid, huh?" She asked, casually. "Yeah. The fearless leader's got the ANBU running counter-intelligence missions to try and keep other villages from finding out what happened here," She said, snorting. "Only makes sense that he use the Intelligence division to do police work, and someone said it'd be best if my superior didn't show up, or he'd get a Kunai between the eyes."

"Who said that?" Sakura asked.

"You." Anko said, and then shrugged.

'You THREATENED a Jounin?!' The pink haired girl demanded, horrified.

Ranma's response was dismissive. 'Coulda carried through on it if I'd wanted to.' She answered.

'And who told me not to do anything that'd get us declared missing-nin?' Kura-chan asked.

'Shut up." Ranma replied, embarrassed. 'I wasn't really thinkin that clearly, all right?'

"Hey, kid!" Anko called, snapping her fingers in front of Sakura's eyes. "You all right?"

Sakura twitched in slight surprise, bringing her attention back to the present. "Sorry, did you say something?" She asked.

"I said, now that you know that I'm here, do you mind if we go get some lunch?" Anko replied.

Sakura blinked at her. She then repeated this action several times. "What?"

"I'm hungry and I'm out of Dango." Anko explained. "I've got to keep an eye on you, standing orders, so if I go off to eat, you've gotta come with me."

"So, you're really hungry, huh?" Sakura asked, curiously.

The older black haired woman nodded.

"Then I think I'll go back to training." Turning, Sakura started concentrating on her Chi again, and eventually, at Ranma's prodding, started moving through a slow Kata. Anko watched the movements, curious about a style which she didn't recognize. Granted, she wasn't a Taijutsu expert, but she'd seen a lot of the styles the village used, and this one could most closely be equated to Gentle Fist, with lots of open-handed strikes that looked very elegant and precise, though slowed down dramatically.

Then, her stomach gurgled. 'Damn it, I should have brought more Dango.' The Special Jounin thought. She'd come out here, assuming that the girl would spend half an hour or so training before going back to read scrolls or something, and so far it had been four hours, passing right through lunch.

"Still hungry, huh?" Sakura asked, and then opened the pouch on the side of her outfit where weapons were usually kept, withdrawing a wrapped sandwich.

The jounin's eyes lit up. "Hey, can I have some of that?" She asked, and Sakura only grinned, taking a large bite and chewing deliberately.

'Y'know, this kinda thing ain't gunna work on the guy with the scar.' Ranma said, enjoying the taste of the food, and the irritated expression on the Jounin's face.

'Probably not.' Sakura said, with malicious glee.

Anko grimaced at the girl for a moment as she considered either swiping her sandwich or just going off to get some more Dango, but she knew that both choices would get her in a heap of trouble if she were reported. "This is about the interrogation thing, right?" She asked, finally.

Sakura stopped munching on her food for a moment, and gave the woman an incredulous look. "You've got to ask?"

"Stupid question." Anko admitted. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it had to be done."

"Had to be done?" Sakura said, and though Anko didn't know it, she and Ranma were speaking in tandem. "You did it because of a misunderstanding in orders that you didn't bother getting cleared up for two days!"

"Hey, it wasn't like that!" Anko objected. "Well, at least not completely. Kakashi had this whole blackout on information from the battle to try and keep other villages from finding out we lost our Hokage until we could get reorganized. Not my fault the idiot decided it extended to intelligence, too."

Sakura just sniffed, and took another big bite out of her sandwich, before slipping it back into its bag and resuming her training.

Anko groaned dispiritedly, and decided to keep watching the Genin. Perhaps she could pilfer some of the unusual movements for the Hibi style, though they were mostly far too passive and easy to predict.

The Intelligence Ninja lasted for another twenty minutes, watching the pink haired girl go through her moves, before her stomach grumbled again and she jumped to her feet. Sakura only looked over at her for a moment, shrugging as the older woman leapt into the trees.

'Okay, she's gone. Time to move on to the real work.' Ranma said, and Sakura blinked.

'Real work?' She asked, confused.

'Yeah, time to show ya some of my better techniques, and do some body hardening stuff.' Ranma said.

'Wait…' Sakura realized. 'You mean you knew she's been watching us this whole time?'

'Yup.' Ranma replied, cheerfully.

Sakura face-faulted.

HR.

Shortly afterward, Anko Mitarashi was leaning against a cart at the gates of Konoha, chewing on one of the Dango on her most recent stick.

when the woman stiffened, and the Dango fell from her fingers, the proprietor of the stall's face paled noticeably. The last time Anko had dropped a dango willingly, twelve missing nin had charged into town to try and capture supplies.

"Is there something wrong, Anko-san?" The man asked, nervously.

Anko didn't reply for several moments, her eyes distant as she used a technique to look through the eyes of one of her summoned snakes. Finally, she muttered, "Is she hitting herself in the face with rocks?"

Just as she was about to start running back to her clearly suicidal charge, an ANBU appeared before her in a puff of white smoke. "Oh crap." The special Jounin muttered, wondering precisely how much trouble she was in.

"The Hokage wishes to see Sakura Haruno in his office. Have you seen her?" The man asked, hopefully.

Anko wanted to laugh at the man's perplexed expression, but repressed that urge and nodded instead. "I'll go get her." She said, running off again.

"But Anko-san, your bill!" The Dango cart's owner yelled after her.

"He'll pay it!" The dark haired woman yelled back, pointing at the ANBU. The owner looked at the other Ninja, who was wearing a mask that looked a little like a dog. The other sighed, and handed him several hundred ryo from a pocket before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

HR.

Naruto stood with Kurenai, Shino and Hinata inside of Kiba's room as the Inuzuka sat on the hospital bed holding a small lump of white fur that was Akamaru. Team 8 had decided to meet here since Kiba was still a member of the team for the moment and leaving him out wouldn't be fair.

"So, you guys are heading out after these Sannin guys, huh?" The Dog Ninja asked, looking over the other four.

Kurenai nodded. "We received reports of someone matching the description of Lady Tsunade running from some debt collectors near the border to Water Country."

Kiba laughed. "Sounds like these people are real model citizens." He said, and then the joviality seemed to leak out of him. "I guess this is goodbye, then." He said, finally.

"You'll have recovered when we get back." Shino said, dismissively.

Kiba shook his head. "That's the thing…" He said, looking down to Akamaru. "My buddy's injuries are pretty bad. He's still a puppy, so he can recover, but it'll probably take him a while." He looked away from his team for a moment. "I'm probably out of action for the next year, at least.

"Oh… I… I'm sorry to hear that." Hinata said, softly, looking at her teammate sadly.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, but I can't leave him to heal by himself." Kiba said, rubbing the top of Akamaru's head.

"We'll expect you to be ready to come back in a year, Inuzuka." Shino said, no expression readable in his face.

Kiba blinked. "Wha..?" He asked, confused.

Hinata nodded, and then Kurenai spoke up. "This is a tracking team, what would we do without our hunting dog?"

Kiba found himself smiling, and could even feel Akamaru becoming more lively at the statements. "Thanks." He said, gruffly, as he could feel his throat tightening.

"We've got to go now, we'll be back after we find the Sannin." Kurenai said, and the team turned around.

As they headed for the door, Kiba called out. "Hey, Uzumaki?"

"Um, yeah?" Naruto asked, having kept quiet up until this point in order to keep out of the way of the established team.

"Hold my place for me, and make sure those two make it through for me to come back." Kiba said.

Naruto stood for a moment, and then turned completely to face the other. "You bet!" He said, giving the feral looking boy a thumbs up.

"Come on, We're going." Shino called, reaching back and grabbing Naruto by the collar.

"Gah, hey, I'm coming!" The blond boy said, hurriedly running after the other two.

HR.

"Do I want to know what happened to your cheek?" Kakashi asked, as he sat across the Hokage's desk from Sakura.

"A training exercise." The pink haired girl explained, then grimaced. "At least, that's what Ranma calls it. I call it more torture."

"Ranma?" Kakashi asked, and Sakura winced.

She knew that he'd called her here to get a full debriefing on what was happening with the seal on her stomach, as Ranma had explained it, but she hadn't really wanted to be the one to bring up the topic. "Ranma, that's who's sealed inside of me."

Kakashi frowned, thinking through the list of tailed beasts. "Ranma" meant wild horse, but he couldn't think of any horse demons. "This Ranma is the one I talked to yesterday?" He asked. At Sakura's nod, he continued, "And it told you to perform training that caused bruising along your face?"

"I asked her to help me become stronger." Sakura said, softly. "So far, she's helped me as best she could, and the idea behind the training as it was explained made sense."

Kakashi sighed, and then rubbed his forehead. Apparently, his student had made a deal with this… thing, whatever it was, and from what he'd seen of it he was pretty sure that was a bad thing. "All right, can you start from the beginning? Tell me when you first saw this 'Ranma.'"

HR.

A little over an hour and a half later, Kakashi sat back in the Hokage's overly comfortable chair, thinking over what had been told to him. The story had been very hard to believe in some parts, especially the bit about a male martial artist with a curse from another universe fighting an old ghoul, but at the moment, he had no other ideas about what was going on.

For a moment, the man considered what to do as Sakura looked at him from the other side of the desk. That was the one thing that made her story more believable. This 'Ranma' had taken control of her body several times, most particularly during the fight with the Ichibi, and the torture session afterward, and given it back to her.

Finally leaning forward, he asked, "Can I speak with Ranma?"

Sakura nodded, and as he watched, he noticed that her entire posture seemed to change. Even without his Sharingan active, it was obvious to see the girl's entire stance and attitude shifting, as she slouched a little from her former proper and attentive position, yet still managed to convey much more confidence. "What do ya wanna ask?" She asked, and he inwardly noted that her grammar had deteriorated as well.

"I want to know your intentions towards Sakura and this village." Kakashi said, evenly.

The girl seemed to think for a moment, before responding. "I can't lie to save my life, so I'll be honest." She said. "I don't give a damn about your village." Kakashi blinked, thinking that she would at least attempt to seem loyal. "I think you're a bunch of paranoid trigger happy idiots, but I understand why ya gotta be that way. If it were just me, I'd get as far off from all of ya, maybe as far up in the mountains as I could."

"So why haven't you?" Kakashi asked.

"'Cuz it's not just me. I'm here in Sakura's head, 'n she's got friends and family here." Ranma explained. "I care about her, mostly because she's a kid, and because I'm pretty well stuck in her head. So I wanna keep her alive, and preferably happy."

"Hmm." Kakashi muttered. This girl, oddly enough, reminded him of some of the village guards he'd seen in places that were too small or out of the way to have Ninja of their own. She had almost no subtlety to speak of, and seemed honest in what she'd said.

Though he would have liked it much more if the… person… within Sakura had shown a little more loyalty to the Leaf, he knew that if he'd asked the Nine-tails within Naruto, it would have bitten his head off, or started ripping villagers to pieces for sport. "So what you're saying," He finally said, "Is that so long as Sakura is loyal, you will be as well."

The pink haired girl shrugged. "Pretty much," She said, off-hand.

"That will have to do for now." Kakashi decided, and then stopped, as if remembering something. "But… I have to ask, why were you hitting yourself with a boulder? Sakura said that the reasoning made sense, but I can't think of a reason to do that."

Ranma shrugged. "She said she wanted a higher pain tolerance, and the breaking point'll give her that, real tough skin and the ability to blow up rocks by pokin 'em."

"…oh." Kakashi said, blinking.

"Can we go now?" Ranma asked, as the older man didn't seem to be ready to say anything else.

Kakashi thought for a moment, and then frowned. "No, actually, there is one more thing I wanted to talk about, with Sakura if at all possible."

The girl didn't say anything, but as her mannerisms changed again, Kakashi found the ease with which the two switched a little disconcerting. "Sakura?" He asked, and got a nod.

He took several seconds to marshal his thoughts. Over the past day, in between reports, he had taken the time to think about how badly he had failed his team. It was true that when he'd checked on Sasuke, the black haired boy had been fine, but it still didn't change the fact that he'd dropped the ball.

It was why he'd always failed the Genin he'd gotten, because he'd known that he was no good at teaching, and almost resented Sarutobi for putting him in the academy. He shouldn't have let his desire to teach Sasuke lead him into the position this time, either, but that wasn't important at the moment.

"Kakashi Sensei?" Sakura asked tentatively, the older man having apparently drifted off into thought.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He said, and shook his head. "Sakura, given what has happened, and my current responsibilities, I'm afraid I'm going to have to assign you Genin to different teams."

"What?" Sakura asked, shocked.

"Naruto has already been transferred to fill a hole in Team 8, and I will make arrangements for Sasuke this afternoon, however given there are no other teams who are under-staffed, and because you have to train for the third round of the Chunin exams, if there is one you would prefer to be on, at least temporarily, you can tell me now." The silver haired man said, and then leaned back to wait for the girl's response.

'I'm being transferred off of Team 7?' Sakura thought, the idea seeming to ring hollow in her mind.

'Well, there can't really be a team 7, with the leader becoming Hokage and one member already on team 8.' Ranma said, practically.

'Yeah, but… Sasuke…' Sakura continued, sadly.

'Hey, we'll still see him around the village!' Kura-chan said, though she was a little reluctant sounding.

'Yeah, but…' Sakura continued.

Ranma spoke up, slightly hesitant. 'As much as I don't wanna help with you getting lover-boy, sometimes people find it real annoying when someone's always pestering 'em. Maybe you not being on a team with Sasuke could be a good thing for ya.'

'Hmm, really?' Sakura asked.

'Believe me, I know what I'm talkin about.' Ranma muttered, darkly.

'Yeah, I guess, but then, where do we go?' Kura-chan asked.

'The team with Lee and Gai on it!' Ranma spoke up, instantly.

'Hey, Saotome, with how fast you spoke up like that, people might think you like Lee.' Kura-chan spoke up, teasingly.

'You ever say that again, I WILL hit you.' Ranma drawled.

Sakura gave off a long sigh as the two voices in her head shot back and fourth again, but she really couldn't think of anywhere she would rather be assigned. She would have asked to be with Ino on her team, but the two hadn't really gotten along ever since they'd started pursuing Sasuke.

"I think I'd like to be assigned to Gai Sensei's team." She finally said, getting a raised eyebrow from Kakashi.

"Are you sure?" The older Ninja asked, not having expected the choice.

"Yeah. Training from Gai Sensei should help me use the things Ranma can teach me." Sakura explained, though she didn't look as sure as her words suggested.

"…all right, I'll file the papers tonight." Kakashi said, and winced as he thought of his 'eternal rival's' reaction to the news. The gloating, he thought, would be maddening. "Nice guy, my…" He started, before Sakura spoke.

"Sir?"

"Oh, nothing…" Kakashi said, shaking his head. "You are dismissed for the day. Report to training ground 25 tomorrow morning to meet with the rest of your team."

"Thank you, sir." Sakura said, and bowed before she left the office.

HR.

Kin Tsuchi really, really wished that her weapons of choice weren't bells. Currently, she could hear hundreds of the little bastards ringing in her ears, driving her to the point of homicidal rage. "Would someone shut those up?!" She bellowed, and her head exploded in pain, though the constant ringing seemed to stop.

Moving one hand to rub at her practically bursting skull, the Sound Ninja felt something holding the arm down, and opening her eyes she saw the white square-filled ceiling of a room that quite clearly was not her own, or the tent she'd brought with her to Konoha.

Groaning, she turned her head to the side, noting the door to what looked like a hospital room. Looking down in a panic, she noted that the thing that kept her arm in place was not, as she had feared, a restraint but actually an intravenous drip connected to a bag at her bedside. "What happened?" She croaked, her voice sounding roughly as if someone had poured half a bag of sand down her throat.

At that thought, the image of a massive, sand covered shape burst into her brain, and she groaned. Now, she remembered. She'd been in combat with Shukaku, the one tailed Tanuki, and somehow, she wasn't dead… though the headache she currently had made her sincerely wish that she was. "So, I'm in the hospital in Konoha?" She thought, and then her face paled.

Since she had survived Shukaku, it was very likely that Orochimaru was going to come back and finish the job. Granted, she could escape, but what was the point?

Staring up at the ceiling once again, the Sound Ninja made a decision. "Hey!" She yelled, as loud as she could. "I was a spy from Orochimaru, I want to defect!"

END.

Okay, Chapter 6 is done! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did writing it.

I'd like to say sorry for the poor editing of chapter 5. I didn't wait for my pre-readers, and with the sub-par system I'm working with now, it showed. I hope this chapter is better corrected.

Please, keep dropping me reviews telling me how I'm doing and giving ideas. I've come up with the final ending, but it's three years away, in story, so there are a lot of neat events to come, I hope.

Oh, a note I may as well put here. Once I read about the 'Moon's eye plan,' I sorta gave up completely on canon Akatsuki doing anything remotely badass with their final plan, and am therefore declaring right now that this fic is A/U. Akatsuki is 50% less idiotic!

Bye!


	8. Chapter 7: Interactions

Not much to say here, enjoy.

Chapter 7, Interactions.

Kakashi stared into a small, transparent glass ball that sat on the Hokage's desk, the only thing looking back at him being his own reflection. Reaching out, he tapped the orb with one finger, sending tiny concentric rings of light rippling through it as if it were filled with water.

This was one of the Hokage's most powerful observational tools, letting him see anywhere within the village's walls through various spy wards that had been set up, and much like all of the other good parts of the job, Kakashi was denied it. Well, he was denied it so long as he refused to take up the permanent post of Hokage, but he knew that course of action was out of the question.

If he had to deal with one more holier-than-thou civilian council member or Hyuga Main House elder, he was confident that he was going to go insane, and he now suddenly had a lot more sympathy for the Third's occasional, very softly muttered, complaints about having wanted to retire twenty years ago.

As the interim fifth Hokage gazed out upon Konoha through the large window in his office, observing the orange drenching of sunset, he pondered what would happen to the place in the future.

Suddenly, jolting the silver haired man out of his thoughts, a set of loud, sharp taps echoed from the door. "Come in, Gai!" He called, not even having to scan the other's Chakra signature to know who it was.

The door swung open, and the green clad Ninja walked in, giving Kakashi a big cheesy grin. "How are things as Hokage, my rival?" He asked.

Kakashi grimaced at the other man, just knowing that he was acting so happy on purpose. Granted, Gai had been as solemn when he'd found out about Sarutobi's death as anyone, but Kakashi knew that a large part of his philosophy was to try and maintain a hopeful outlook, no matter what. Even knowing this, however, the other man's cheer irked the Copy Ninja somewhat.

"Sit down, Gai," Kakashi said, "this is actual business."

Gai's attitude dialed itself down several notches, as he took a seat in front of the Hokage's desk. "Do you have a mission for my team and I?" He asked, a lot more seriously.

Kakashi shook his head. "I only needed one Genin team to supplement our ranks, and Team 8 departed this afternoon on a tracking mission."

"Hmm…" Gai said, pondering that for a moment, and Kakashi went on.

"No, I actually need you to take on another team member for the time being, at least until the end of the Chunin exams."

"A four man team?" Gai asked, and then realization seemed to enter his expression. "Oh!" He exclaimed, smiling. "You're re-organizing your team until you can return to teaching them?"

"Sort of, Kakashi muttered, and then started explaining.

HR.

Several minutes later, Gai sat across from his eternal rival, pondering what he had been told. It had come as a large shock that Kakashi was permanently retiring as a teacher, and Gai was about to try and motivate him to reconsider when his reasons had been explained.

What concerned him more now, however, was the news of the student he was to get. The idea that Sakura Haruno needed more Taijutsu training wasn't a foreign one to the green clad Ninja, as he'd seen her fight before and the first time he'd seen her look at all competent at the art was during the battle with Shukaku, but the news of how she'd gained the skill she'd used to help them ward off the one tailed demon was a surprise.

"So, young Haruno has something sealed within her that claims not to be a demon, and that is teaching her how to fight." Gai recapped, slowly. At Kakashi's nod, the man's usual casual expression seemed to slip for a moment. "Why are you assigning the girl to my team, rather than having her restrained?" He asked, bluntly.

It was a question that surprised Kakashi, coming from whom it did, but he answered regardless. "Quite frankly, the village owes both Sakura and her passenger a debt, not only for their assistance in the battle with Shukaku, but for their treatment afterward." He said, and then his head slumped at the other man's steady look. "And… I trust the thing, all right?" He admitted.

"Hmm?" Gai asked, actually curious.

"I spoke with it," Kakashi explained. "The way it acted, the way it spoke, and even what it told me screamed that it had no intention of doing anything that would endanger Sakura's life… that its story was actually true." He shrugged, helplessly. "I spent a great deal of time learning to read people in the ANBU, and that girl read as an open book."

Gai considered this for a long moment, and then nodded. "All right!" He exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "I will teach your student to truly understand the Fires of Youth!"

Kakashi looked at Gai for a long moment, and then smiled slightly. "You were getting me worried there, acting reasonable." He quipped, and leaned back in his chair.

The other just smirked at him, putting one thumb up, before turning and walking from the room.

HR.

Kabuto concealed a frown as he leaned casually against a wall in the nursing office of Konoha's main hospital. He often spent time here, as the village's medical staff tended to gossip more than a group of housewives on laundry day, but what he'd heard this time was quite disturbing.

Only an hour ago, Kin Tsuchi had woken from her unconscious state, and promptly announced to the walls of her room, which just happened, as a matter of course, to have a couple listening devices built in, that she was formerly one of Orochimaru's followers and that she wanted to defect.

This development put a huge hole in both Orochimaru's plans, and Kabuto's already small chance for survival. Kin had, in fact, met the medic nin spy and was fully capable of telling Konoha's interrogation teams all about him, not to mention the entire Village Hidden in the Sound.

Pushing off from the wall, the Medic Nin started into the depths of the hospital proper. This problem had to be taken care of now, before interrogation got their grubby hands on the woman.

HR.

Kiba looked out the window of his hospital room, stroking Akamaru gently as he did so. He knew that his team had already likely left on their mission, and that at least for the present, his time as a Ninja of the Leaf was over. Still, he wanted to help the village, and he didn't really know how.

Also, though, he wanted to hunt down the bastard who had injured his partner so badly and cut his head off, but judging by his showing against the other last time, that wasn't going to happen. "Maybe I can go back and help take care of the puppies for a while." He thought aloud, and got an affirmative bark from Akamaru.

"You'd like that, huh?" He asked, laughing and rubbing the white animal's head. Akamaru barked happily, and he laughed until he saw the dog wince from the movement.

"Sorry buddy, you're gunna have to settle a bit." The Dog Ninja decided, and leaned over the edge of the bed, depositing the white animal on the ground. Akamaru barked again, more softly this time, and slowly made his way along, not able to put much weight on either left side limb due to the bandaged gash in his flank.

Kiba was about to let the dog find a place to pass out, and maybe go to sleep himself, when he heard Akamaru's quiet whining. Looking over to it, he saw that the bowl he'd set aside for water was empty. "Hold on, I'll get you some more." Kiba decided, and got out of bed. He swayed for a moment, but quickly got his balance back, as he hadn't really taken much damage that he hadn't already recovered from.

Unfortunately, this meant that he had been shunted to one of the less well-equipped rooms in the hospital, and therefore didn't have a sink to fill up the dog's bowl at. Grumbling and good naturedly poking the puppy for making him have to take care of it, the feral looking Ninja bent, scooping up the bowl and exiting the room.

Stepping out into the hall, the hairs on the back of Kiba's neck rose, though he couldn't figure out why. Knowing better than to ignore the feeling straight out, he extended his senses, keeping his guard up as he walked down the hall.

About half way to the washroom that held the only publically accessable sink on this level, the Dog Ninja heard the sound of someone crying out, as if in fear, though it was muffled somewhat. Turning, he tracked it to a room that had two masked ANBU guards at the door. "Hey, did you hear that?" He asked, but the ANBU stood, unmoving.

Stepping up to them uncertainly, Kiba noted that they both seemed to be leaning against the walls, and as he got closer, he could hear snoring. What was worse, though his sense of smell wasn't quite as good as when he was in his beast mimicry technique, he could smell the sickly sweet scent of drugs on the air.

"Damn it." He grunted, and without thinking more about it, grabbed the door's handle and pulled. What he saw inside was a young woman who he recognized from the tournament, one of the members of the Sound Team, backing up against the end of her bed with a noticeably scared expression.

In front of her, a Ninja stood whose face Kiba couldn't see, but he was holding up what looked like a needle in one hand. "Hey, what's going on here?" Kiba snapped, angrily.

The weakened Sound Ninja threw the newcomer one desperate glance, before her attacker turned, and Kiba stepped back in surprise. "Hey, you're that Kabuto guy, from the exams!" He exclaimed.

"Yes, and I'm here to treat this patient as part of my training, now please leave so that you don't agitate her." Kabuto said, levelly.

The sound Ninja tried to say something, but Kiba noticed Kabuto's arm move, almost too quickly to be seen, and the other's mouth clicked closed with a hiss of pain. "Yeah," He said, sarcastically. "That's why there're two unconscious ANBU out there. Now, how 'bout you get away from the girl?" As he was saying this, Kiba was forming hand seals as quickly as he could, but as he finished, his opponent moved.

"Beast Mimicry Jut…argh!" Kiba yelled, as a lance of pain dug into his chest. The only thing that saved him from death was the fact that he'd been preparing to jump back right after his Jutsu was finished, and the wound had been shallower than intended. Still, it did its job, and the only actual Leaf Ninja in the room fell to the ground, clutching his chest.

Kabuto snorted, preparing to return to his original task, when he heard the sound of someone sliding the window of the room open. Looking over quickly, he cursed as he saw a cat masked ANBU entering, and jumped over Kiba's wounded form, rushing down the hall as quickly as he could. The ANBU followed quickly after him, and as Kin watched the door swing slowly closed behind the two, she let out a sigh of relief.

She knew that Kabuto had been Orochimaru's attempt at getting rid of her, or at least one of them, and she'd survived. She frowned, looking to the floor to see Kiba panting in pain, his features contorted. "Are… you all right?" She asked, slowly.

Kiba just grunted, and Kin sighed. He had saved her life, after all, so she did owe the boy something. Carefully, she pulled herself out of bed, the world only spinning slightly more than it had already been through her efforts to escape Kabuto. Taking her sheets with her, she began to rip one up to act as a bandage on the boy's wounds.

"This is gunna be a long night." She muttered, sourly.

HR.

Sakura looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. "I don't like it, but it's all I've got." She grumbled, looking at the flack jacket and dark clothing that she wore. Ranma had, somehow, managed to tailor it to fit her, but it didn't have nearly as much flair as her ordinary clothes.

'Hey, at least you ain't a big red target anymore.' Ranma contributed.

'Says she of the bright red shirt.' Kura-chan chipped in.

'Yeah, but I wasn't tryin ta be a Ninja.' Ranma returned, before her mood brightened. 'Besides, we can get some new stuff later. Right now, we get ta train with Gai and Lee!'

'Yeah, right…' Sakura thought, her own enthusiasm very much duller than the other's. 'This is going to hurt, isn't it?'

'probably.' Ranma replied.

Sakura sighed, straightening the top of the jacket and still kind of surprised at how well it fit. 'Where'd you say you learned the whole tailoring thing, again?' She asked.

'Remember those Kunoichi classes in second year?' Ranma asked, and Sakura grimaced. She'd generally hated those classes, especially the flower arrangement, and even with Ino's help she'd barely passed.

'Keep forgetting you watched my lessons.' She muttered, and then checked her belt pouches one last time, before turning and exiting her room. As she walked down the stairs to the front of the house, she waved at her mother who was busy doing something in the living room.

"Have a good day, Sakura!" The older woman called, and the pink haired girl could detect a bit more worry there than usual. Trying to pretend that she hadn't heard it, she changed her mental focus to what was going to happen that day during training, and then wished that she hadn't thought about that, either.

HR.

"Hello, my students!" Maito Gai exclaimed, as he and the three Genin stood in the middle of an open field that was the majority of training ground 25.

"Hello, Gai Sensei, what are we going to be doing for training today?!" Lee asked, excitedly, while Neji gave him an irritated look and TenTen yawned, as it was far too early for her to be moving. The girl really wasn't a morning person, and given her companions, that was a real problem.

"We have to hold off on training for a while, Lee." Gai explained. "We've got a new teammate for you three up until the beginning of the finals."

Lee's eyes widened, and even TenTen's attention was caught, though Neji was looking as indifferent as ever at Gai's last comment. "So, who is it Sensei?" The black haired girl asked, curiously.

"How could I possibly bare to ruin the secret and spoil the surprise?" Gai said, grinning like an idiot.

"Sakura Haruno just entered the training ground gates." Neji drawled, causing Gai to frown at him for a moment. Sometimes, the instructor found his second male student could suck all of the energy out of any occasion, though he had to admit that Neji set a good goal for Lee, and was a spectacularly good Ninja in his own right.

"Sa… sa… Sakura?" Lee said, stuttering rapidly. "Sakura is on our Genin team?"

Gai nodded, not seeming aware of his student's rapid stuttering. "Yes, young Miss Haruno felt that she needed some body hardening and strength training, and since her team was disbanded, we were obviously the ones to provide it. Now, Lee, I hope you don't mind the divided attention, but I swear I'll keep working with you to the best of my ability for the final exam. That goes the same for you and Neji as well, TenTen."

Lee was speechless for a moment, before TenTen slapped him upside the head. "Huh?" He asked, confused.

"He asked if you mind us adding Sakura for our training sessions." TenTen said, irritably.

"Oh, of course not! Sakura is welcome to train with me whenever she wants to!" Lee said, quickly.

TenTen sighed, slapping her forehead, but when she saw Lee's stupid grin, she couldn't help smiling herself. "Just gives me another target, I don't mind." She answered.

"I'll be training with the Gentle Fist." Neji grunted, and everyone knew that that statement pretty well meant that he'd go hide himself somewhere, just in case Non-Hyuga tried to copy the techniques.

"All right then, if that's settled," Gai said, as Sakura finally made it across the large expanse of the field. "Let's welcome our new temporary member.

"Hey," TenTen said, waving casually at the younger girl.

"Hello, Sakura." Lee said, excitedly.

Neji just grunted noncommittally before wandering off.

As the pink haired girl looked over her new team, noting that only one of them seemed to be acting anywhere near friendly without fixing her with a really weird stare, she grumbled 'what have you gotten me into?'

Ranma didn't respond.

'Figures.' Sakura said, before smiling and nodding back to the other three.

HR.

'What did I do to deserve this?' Asuma thought, as he sat on the edge of practice range 4, watching Ino fawning over their newest team member. Ino, the one person on his team who was going to be in the Chunin exam finals, had done a grand total of three training exercises today without fumbling in some way upon catching sight of her new team member.

"Sasuke!" Asuma called, and the black haired boy looked up from a scroll he was studying on the ground to give his teacher a disconcertingly level look. "What are you working on?"

The last loyal Uchiha stood, picking up the scroll with him and bringing it over to his teacher. Asuma took it, looking over the contents, and his eyes widened. "This…" He closed his mouth and handed it back. "Practice that on the trees deeper in the forest." He ordered. The last thing he needed was an assassination technique of that power going off near the others.

As Ino went to follow the boy, the teacher snapped, "And you are going to do shuriken accuracy drills for the next hour and a half."

"But Sensei…" The girl complained, sounding like someone much younger.

Asuma's eyebrow twitched violently. "Drills, now!" He demanded.

"Wow, I've never seen him so mad." Choji muttered, standing next to Shikamaru and waiting for orders.

"Yeah, but at least neither of them are bugging us anymore." Shikamaru agreed, and then turned around, walking off to rest under a tree.

HR.

"What?!" Kabuto winced. Normally, Orochimaru's voice never rose above a sibilant hiss, no matter how angry he got. Now, however, he was pretty sure that the people in the next village over had heard it.

"I did what I felt I had to do." Kabuto explained, evenly, though there was a bubbling well of fear under his calm surface. "I didn't want Kin to expose the Sound village. That would ruin our plans for the invasion, and…"

"The invasion plans have already been almost completely destroyed, and you were my best asset in the Leaf Village." Orochimaru spat. "Now, my only option is an actual direct assault, and I have little idea how much power Gaara has lost."

The snake ninja paced back and forth in the clearing where Kabuto had delivered his report, thinking. "Luckily, the old fool is dead, so I may have a chance of destroying the village without the Tanuki to distract the villagers, if I strike carefully…" He muttered, his hand on his chin. "Yes, it is still possible for me to retrieve Uchiha and destroy Konoha."

Kabuto let out a sigh of relief, which turned out to be a mistake, as the older Ninja turned to him at the sound. "You, however, have still failed catastrophically and endangered the plan completely!" Orochimaru roared.

"L… Lord Orochimaru, I…" Kabuto said, but before he could say more, his commander's hand lashed out and caught him square in the chest. As he doubled forward, he felt a stinging sensation on his neck, in a place that he knew well would cause instant unconsciousness.

HR.

'These things are way too heavy, and you're telling me I have to wear them all the time?' Sakura complained to her inner selves as she trudged home, arms dragging at her sides and foot-falls reluctantly slow.

'You said you wanted to be stronger.' Ranma said, sounding very happy with herself, and thinking of the several hours of sparring and weapons avoidance practice that they'd had. Granted, it had been Sakura in control, so they hadn't made a great showing of it, but she'd shown some progress and had even managed to grab one of TenTen's wooden Kunai, chucking it back at her.

'Bet you're regretting agreeing to this already, hmm?' Kura-chan asked, sounding irritatingly smug.

'Would you be quiet?' Sakura snarled to both of them, and then sighed as she raised one arm, a bracer clasped around it holding about 15 pounds of Chakra created weight. There was another one on her other arm, and 20 pounds on each leg. 'I can't believe I went along with this.' She muttered again, 'and to think, Gai Sensei only wanted the leg weights, and you made me use the arm ones.'

Ranma gave off the mental equivalent of a shrug. 'Not using the arms too is kinda stupid, 'n probably why Lee had such a hard time hitting you before you put your own weights on.' She replied. 'He was never workin on his hand speed.'

'I guess.' Sakura said, uncertainly.

'I think there was another reason Lee had such a hard time hitting us!' Kura-chan chanted, evilly.

'Huh? Why?' Ranma asked, obliviously.

Sakura just sighed.

'Don't worry…' Ranma responded, and went silent for a moment. As Sakura was opening her house's front door, she spoke again. 'You did good.'

'Thanks.' Sakura said, and smiled.

HR.

As he sat in the middle of a large clearing, tied to a post, Kabuto cursed pretty much everything he could think of. This included Orochimaru, the village, that damned Dog Ninja who'd stopped his assassination attempt, and the giant, twenty foot long snake that was coiling and uncoiling across from him, its posture clearly screaming that it was hungry.

Now, after some time thinking things over during the three days since the Hokage's death, the medic nin knew where things had started to go wrong. It had started when he'd lost his scroll during the second exam, disqualifying his team from the third.

Now that he thought about it, he'd clearly remembered tucking both scrolls securely into a belt pouch that he'd found intact when he'd checked it later, which meant that someone must have swiped one. Uzumaki was too stupid to have done so, and Sasuke had been far too out of it, which left only one suspect.

"Sakura Haruno, when I'm free, I'm going to kill you!" The grey haired spy snarled, the huge serpent slowly gliding towards him.

END.

Well, there we have it. Saku/Ranma now has a rival... assuming Kabuto somehow manages to survive that big snake.

Hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, and please R&R!


	9. Chapter 8: Croak

A chapter... yeah. I'm posting too fast lately to have much to say up here. Got back to school... BOOO!!!

...

Yeah, enjoy!

Chapter 8, Croak.

"Aw man, this just isn't fair! How long are you gunna keep doing this?!" Naruto Uzumaki complained, as he rolled around next to the fire pit where the rest of Team 8 were eating lunch.

"Only until you figure out the trick, Naruto!" Kurenai said, munching on a freshly caught fish. "Like I said, it all has to do with the training I've been giving you."

Naruto stopped moving for a moment, and glared up at the woman. "How does illusion training have anything to do with tying me up and eating in front of me?" He grumbled, and resumed his efforts to escape.

"I.. don't understand why he doesn't get it, Sensei." Hinata said, softly, having trouble even suggesting that something was wrong with her crush.

Kurenai shook her head. "It seems we have another Lee on our hands here." She muttered, before placing another bite into her mouth. "Brilliant on the battlefield, and a little slow everywhere else."

"A little?" Shino said, as Naruto briefly rolled into the fire pit between them, and then jumped to his feet, yelping in pain. As he came down, noting that he could move his arms again, he smirked.

"Hey, I got free of the ropes!" He yelled, jubelently, and sat down next to Hinata, who slid a little bit away from him with her face turning slightly red.

"...Yes, Naruto. Very good." Kurenai said, a small drop of sweat moving down her forehead, "but I think later today we'll work some more on identifying illusions in combat."

"Sure thing, Sensei!" Naruto said, and looked longingly at the fish the woman was holding.

"Here you go, Naruto." Hinata said, quickly pulling another piece of food from where she'd been saving it for the boy and offering it up. As it disappeared from her hands, she briefly wondered if she would look down to find that they were missing.

"So, where are we going now, Sensei?" The boy asked, though not until after chewing his food and swallowing it carefully. For some reason, Hinata had asked him to do so, though she'd taken about half an hour of "Hmm"ing to choke it out.

"Well, the villagers did tell us that she was sighted heading for Tanzaku Town, so I guess that's where we're going." Kurenai said, shrugging.

"They also mentioned sending headhunters after her, when they thought none of us were around." Shino reported, dispassionately. "Something about Fifty Thousand Ryo."

Kurenai nodded, rubbing her temples. "Looks like we start anti-tracker training tomorrow." She muttered, sourly, and wondered for a moment why it was so vitally important to find this woman.

Granted, she'd heard of Lady Tsunade, the last of the First Hokage's line and one of the greatest healers Konoha had ever seen, but the rumors they had been hearing over the past week of pursuit were disconcerting. Plus, it was rather odd that the thirty year old image they had of the woman was still recognizable, though everyone kept mentioning that she must have developed quickly.

"I hope Jiraiya's not this hard to find, or this infamous." She muttered.

"Hmm?" Shino asked.

"Oh, nothing." She said, quickly, and looked around to see that Hinata was lifting the last of her fish to her mouth. "Well, if we're finished lunch, let's head out.

HR.

"I can't believe I did something so unprofessional!" A white haired man rebuked himself, as he charged through the back streets of Konoha, the sounds of dozens of running feet echoing behind him.

He'd been in perfect position to gain enough research material for the next two weeks of writing, when an inexplicable urge had come upon him, and he'd sneezed. This struck him as rather odd, since he'd been in an alley outside of a bath house with very little dust around, but he dismissed that thought as a long chain swept through the air to one side.

Looking back, he saw that the mass of running feet had turned the corner, resolving into a massive horde of women, three at its head wearing leaf headbands as well as their quickly thrown on clothes. "Great, Kunoichi, that's all I need." He muttered, and decided on a little change in plans.

Leaping to the roofs, he left most of the women behind, only the three Kunoichi, one young Genin and a couple Chunin, following. Changing course, he headed for the one place where he knew even Kunoichi wouldn't follow, all except for that one, and the less he thought about her the better.

As he hit the first fence, running along the edge of training ground twenty-five, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was another Kunoichi there, sparring with a guy in green spandex that he identified as Gai's student. Swerving around as far from the two as he could manage, he kept going, on to ground 24, then across it to 34.

"No, he's getting away!" One of the women called, apparently having had dealings with Jiraiya of the Sanin before. Unfortunately, training grounds 24 and 34 were mostly target ranges, and after a short session of dodging the shuriken of startled Chunin, Jiraiya was across their relatively narrow confines and over the chain link fence that surrounded the edge of training ground 44.

"Argh!" He could hear one of the women scream, as she pounded on the fencing. Sighing, he looked back through a tiny gap in the trees. It was truly sad that they felt so angry about what he had to do in order to get his research material, but did they have to be so violent about it?

"Hey, what'd I say last time I caught you in here?" A rather cross sounding voice demanded, from right behind the Sannin.

Turning, the white haired man stared up from his squatting position on a branch, getting a quite nice view of feminine flesh that was barely covered by a chain bodysuit and trench coat. "Hiya, Anko-chan!" He said, jovially.

Anko's eyebrow twitched. She had had a very bad week. She had, as she'd suspected, been punished for deserting her post guarding the Haruno girl, mostly by being sent on stupid low level missions. The one time she'd been sent on a higher ranked one, she'd had to summon a snake and ended up with one that was asleep, half-paralyzed and had its tongue missing. The result was that she now had a nice new scar along her back.

"Y'know, I'm going to enjoy this." The special jounin drawled, licking her lips.

Jiraiya would have made a quip in return for a straight line that perfect, but feared for his health. Normally, he could outflank the girl quite easily, especially with his toads for backup, but in this forest, which was her domain, he wouldn't bet on it.

"Hey, look! It's Orochimaru!" he yelled, and as Anko turned, he ran off as fast as he could.

Looking around for a moment, the special Jounin's eyebrow twitched. "I really have to work on that blind spot." She muttered, sourly. "Oh well, he'll be back."

Shrugging, she jumped from the tree, pulling out a Kunai and started to sharpen it.

HR.

'Hey, did you just see TenTen and a couple of the older Kunoichi chasing someone?' Ranma's voice cut in on Sakura's thoughts as the pink haired girl was in the middle of a dodge, and as she lost concentration one of Lee's hands blurred into her torso.

Sakura groaned only once as she hit the ground, though she could feel a bruise rapidly growing just below the base of her ribs. 'Did you have to distract me right then?' She snarled back, irritably.

"Sakura, are you all right? I did not mean to hit you that hard, and…" Lee started, having run over as soon as he realized that she had fumbled her dodge.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it." The Kunoichi said, raising one arm and trying to sit up. She did give her passenger some credit, Ranma was already helping mitigate the damage she'd taken with Chi, so that Lee wouldn't see her wince and start holding back again.

It had taken them several days to get him to start fighting at all, and he still refused to take his leg weights off or use any special techniques, the latter fact annoying Ranma to no end.

"Oh, that is good." Lee said, sighing in relief as Sakura regained her feet. "Should we continue?"

"Yeah, sure." She said, and then asked, 'and what did you say?'

'Coulda swore I saw TenTen charging after some white haired guy, with a couple of the older Kunoichi.' Ranma reported.

'What, are you still annoyed that she took the day off to get more supplies?' Kura-chan needled.

'No, I'm serious, I… aw, never mind. Sakura, keep your guard high, looks like he's coming in with an overhand strike.' Ranma said, deciding to give up on figuring out why one of her new teammates was charging around, wearing no pants and waving a steel chain. All she knew was that it didn't involve her in the least at the moment, and that was the safest state for that sort of thing to be in.

HR.

"All right, keep on going!" Choji looked up from a game of chess with Shikamaru, as their Sensei continued chasing Ino around the training field with a bull horn.

"You know, no matter how many times I see that it still freaks me out." He said, and reached out to move his rook into position.

"Hn." Shikamaru said, and then grinned for some reason that Choji couldn't quite place. For a moment, he thought it had something to do with his move, but checking the board revealed no critical blunders, even after the other boy reached out and took his own.

"So, what do you think's causing it?" He finally asked, after another couple of minutes had gone by.

"You mean it's not obvious?" Shikamaru asked, and getting an irritated look from his teammate, he continued. "That rolling trick of yours at least looks impressive, and my strategic ability could impress them even if I lose, but…" He said, as he watched Choji make a move, "With Ino's current skill set, the most likely way she'll win is by staring at her opponent and making them give up, and the most likely way she'll lose is by them busting out Taijutsu and smacking her down before she can."

"So…" Choji asked, as he took another move, and then his eyes widened as he realized that Shikamaru now had a clean shot at his queen with a rook.

"So he's tired of hearing her squeal about Uchiha, probably." The other boy said, promptly taking the opportunity presented.

Choji face faulted, just missing hitting the board. "You know, I expected a different answer, somehow." He muttered, as he picked himself back up.

Shikamaru didn't respond, only shrugging as the two other Ninja came past again, Ino this time sparring with their teacher.

There was silence for several moments.

"Still weird." Choji muttered.

"Yup." Shikamaru returned. "By the way, Win in three moves, and then you owe me lunch."

"Aww, man!" Choji exclaimed, and began concentrating on the game more forcefully than before.

HR.

'That was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, done or felt!' Sakura Haruno raged to herself, as she sat at the edge of the training field watching Gai and Lee train.

'Then ya shouldn'ta let yourself drift off and imagine kissin' lover boy while you were supposed to be watching a fight.' Ranma sniped back, and Sakura heard actual anger in the redhead's voice.

This didn't stop her own outrage, however. 'So you somehow turned Sasuke into… into… damn it, what was that little rat faced thing?!'

'That was Sasuke.' Ranma said, with a smug tone.

'What?' Sakura asked, irritably.

'Sasuke Sarugakure, loyal family Ninja of the Kuno clan.' Ranma returned, casually.

'You mean that's actually a real person?' Sakura asked, incredulously, and then her mind seemed to come back on track. 'And that doesn't answer my real question, why did you do it?'

'Because you were supposed to be watching the fight,' Ranma said, and then Kura-chan snorted.

'Don't you wanna tell her the truth?' She asked, but Ranma clammed up.

'What truth?' Sakura demanded.

'The truth is, that whenever you went on one of your little daydream dates with Sasuke during school, she'd run off to the very back of our mind where she didn't have to deal with it. Unfortunately, she's got to stay up here to help you train now, so she can't really do that anymore.' Kura-chan explained.

'But… why would she do that?' Sakura asked, now totally confused.

'You do remember I was a guy, right?' Ranma snapped.

Sakura thought about that information for a few moments, then her face abruptly turned green. 'Oh, um…' She mentally mumbled, embarrassed. 'I guess it'd sort of be like you imagining being out with a girl and me having to see it, huh?'

Ranma was strangely silent, and Sakura sighed. "I guess I should get back to watching Lee and Gai fight," she conceded, but then frowned. "The idiot could have told me rather than… that, though."

"Told you what?" Sakura almost jumped ten feet as a voice came from just next to her ear, and found herself turning, drawing a Kunai in the same motion and making herself battle ready.

"Woe, calm down!" TenTen said, raising her hands. "You just didn't look too good, that's all. Are you all right?"

"Oh, um, yeah." Sakura returned, embarrassed. She slowly dropped the Kunai back into her pocket, hoping that TenTen wouldn't hold the fact that she'd almost stabbed her against her. "I was just lost in thought, that's all."

"Hmm, dangerous state to be in as a Ninja." TenTen observed, sitting down next to where Sakura was and watching her teammates.

"Yeah," The pink haired girl agreed. She would have to work out a way to keep herself alert, even when she was talking with Ranma, but that wasn't a real priority while she was just training for the exams. "So, did you get your new weapons?"

TenTen frowned sourly. "Yeah, but I ended up wasting most of them on this pervert I chased half way across town." Thinking for a moment, she perked up. "I know, we've all got a day off tomorrow, and I noticed you're still in those clothes from when you destroyed your gear during the exam preliminaries. Do you want to go gear shopping with me?"

The younger Genin looked at the older, surprised. "Huh?" She asked, and then winced, wondering if Ranma was rubbing off on her.

"Well, you're supposed to be on our team, but we haven't even really done much other than throw weapons at each other since the beginning of the weak, so I figured I may as well make friends." TenTen explained, then smirked. "Besides, if we talk, given how anti-social Neji is, we'll have a full team of three."

Sakura giggled. "Yeah, getting gear with you tomorrow should be fun." She decided.

TenTen nodded, and was about to say something else, when Gai walked up to the two girls. "Sakura, come with me please." He said, and then started off towards the edge of the field.

"…do you have any idea what he wants?" Sakura asked, apprehensively.

The other shrugged. "It could be anything from a pep talk to ordering you to wear a huge backpack full of rocks." She said, honestly. Sakura was about to ask what the other meant when talking about the rock filled backpack, but decided not to when she felt a sudden increase in interest from Ranma.

'Don't get any ideas!' She thought, putting as much vehemence behind the sentiment as she could, before starting after Gai at a dead run.

HR.

"Haaa!" In the depths of the forest near training ground 6, a crackling, splitting sound was heard as a tree started to the earth, cleanly split at the base by something that had left scorch marks on either side, but hadn't left any flame.

Nearby, Sasuke Uchiha stood, panting heavily and nursing an arm that looked like it had been through the great ninja war without the rest of him. Behind him two other trees lay, though it was hard to tell as they had been chopped into half a dozen pieces each.

"Almost got the first stage." The young boy panted, though his voice sounded more annoyed than proud at such an accomplishment.

"Yeah, and almost killed me!" came a second voice, and Sasuke was moving before the sentence ended, turning into a defensive stance with one arm raised before him. "Who's there?" The last loyal Uchiha demanded, angrily.

The other didn't respond verbally, but several branches of the tree that Sasuke had just felled began to rustle, parting to reveal a head of messy white hair, an upward sweeping tattoo on each cheek. His forehead protector bore a mark Sasuke didn't recognize, which put him slightly on edge, but the other didn't seem to be doing anything hostile, other than glaring at him, so he didn't go onto full alert.

"What are you doing here?" The younger Ninja asked.

"I was just having a nap up in that tree." The white haired man said, steadily pulling himself from the branches. "Contemplating research material, dodging Kunoichi who misunderstand my eternal, noble quest, that sort of thing."

"Eternal Noble Quest?" Sasuke deadpanned, a little curious in spite of himself.

The man grinned, and produced a book from his jacket pocket that looked a little bit familiar, for some reason. After he tossed it, Sasuke caught it easily and read the title. "Icha Icha Paradise: Untold Adventure?" He asked, and then his face crinkled in disgust.

"It's my newest work, I've got copies of the notes so you can have that one if you want!" The man offered, brightly.

"Hn." Sasuke muttered, tossing the book back to its owner. "Just leave me to train."

"All right, I suppose." The man said, casually, "but you mind if I watch? I've already got plenty of material for the good parts of the book, but some fight scenes never really hurt."

"Suit yourself." Sasuke answered, and turned away from the clearly insane old man, looking for another tree to Chidori into its component splinters.

HR.

Standing in the middle of a small forest clearing near training ground 25, Sakura was getting nervous. Gai was walking around her, looking her up and down and humming speculatively. If she thought he was trying to leer at her or something, she would have slapped him, Sensei or not, but the inspection gave off more of the feel of someone inspecting a sword for flaws. "Um, Sensei?" She asked, uncertainly.

This seemed to bring the older man back from his contemplation, as he stopped in front of her, and looked her in the eye. "Sakura," He started, "Why did you request the extra weight on your arms a week ago?"

"Huh?" Sakura asked, blinking, before processing the question. "Ranma told me that it should help with arm strength, as well as the force and speed of my punches."

Gai nodded. "Ranma…" He murmured, and then pulled at the spandex of his uniform's forearm, revealing a bracer similar to Sakura's. "I tried it out myself, and though there are no tangible results yet, the idea seems sound. This Ranma, what does it know about Taijutsu?"

"She says she's the heir to a school of Taijutsu called Anything Goes…" Sakura said, uncertainly. "Sensei, why are you asking me now?"

Gai frowned, and then nodded. "Kakashi told me that you had something sealed within you, similar to Naruto Uzumaki, but that it claimed to be benign. I've been observing you for the past week to see if it had any effect on you, and have been noticing that your adaptation in the art of Taijutsu, as well as your ability to learn the forms, is much faster than I had expected."

"Um, Sensei, what did you say about Naruto?" Sakura asked, cutting him off for a moment.

"Naruto Uzumaki, the container for the nine tailed demon fox." Gai said, and as he saw Sakura's eyes widen, his own face contorted into an expression of dismay. "You mean they didn't… I really shouldn't have said that." He mumbled. "I thought, with your seal…" He shook his head.

"Sakura, that isn't important, well it IS important, it's an S class secret that I really shouldn't have mentioned, but…" Gai groped for words for a moment, and then decided that he'd better deal with what he'd just done. "The former Hokage ordered that no one was to talk about Naruto's seal, because he was afraid that the young children of the village would react with fear. I personally agree with that ruling, and would ask that you not mention it, even if it wasn't an S class secret."

'Hmm, well that'd explain why Uzumaki feels like such a power house.' Was Ranma's first thought, as the rest of the pink haired girl's mind seemed to be in shutdown mode. Seeing no response, she sighed, and fell into control. "I'll make sure she doesn't blurt it out."

Gai blinked, as he noted a complete attitude shift from total shock to casual confidence in the pink haired girl. "Sakura?" He asked, uncertainly.

"Ranma, actually. Sorry 'bout this, but I think you broke her." The pink haired girl said, sheepishly reaching up to tug at the hair that hung down her back.

"Yes, that is unfortunate, but on occasion the flames of youth can be shaken by a large enough shock, unlike the more sturdy, inflexible rock of adulthood." Gai said. At the moment, he was apparently talking to a demon, or a spirit, or something. Honestly, she seemed far too normal. "You say that you will help her understand why Naruto Uzumaki's nature has to remain a secret?"

The Kunoichi nodded. "Yeah, the kid's kinda dense, but other than that annoying crush he's got on Sakura he's a nice guy. I don't wanna see him put through any crap."

"Yes…" Gai said, though his face darkened for a moment. "Now, what I originally was going to ask you here for, was that I wished to know how good you truly were at the art of Taijutsu."

"You askin me for a spar?" The pink haired girl asked, and her face split into a large grin.

"That wasn't what I was thinking of, however…" Gai fell into a stance. "If you insist!"

"Hya!" Both yelled, jumping into the air, the matching smiles probably creepy enough to make even Lee feel a little unsettled.

HR.

Sasuke let out a deep breath, making several quick hand seals and charging forward with one arm extended, a crackling mass of electricity forming at its end. Plunging it into the trunk of a tree, he felt less resistance than he had the time before, though the energy still wasn't under nearly as much control as the scroll had said it should be.

At the moment, he just wished that Kakashi had demonstrated the technique while Sasuke's own Sharingan was up, so that he would be able to reproduce it perfectly, but the other had only said something about learning to master your own techniques and handed him the scroll before sending him off.

"Not good enough yet." He commented, looking down at his shaking hand.

"You know, you're something else." The white haired man who had been lounging against a log nearby said, flipping through the book he'd tossed to the black haired boy before. "That move is pretty impressive, and you've made a lot of progress using it while I've been watching, and all you say is "Not good enough yet.""

Sasuke just snorted, turning away from the other and starting to form the seals again.

"You know what you need?" The white haired man asked, causing Sasuke to fumble half way through forming the second monkey seal of the technique.

"What." The boy snapped, glaring at the other with his disconcerting black eyes. Much to his annoyance, the white haired man didn't seem bothered in the least.

"You really need to loosen up a bit, I think." He declared, as if the idea was some sort of revelation from the gods.

"That won't make me any stronger," Sasuke countered. "Now will you shut up and leave me to train?"

"Hmm… wanna bet?" The old man asked, smirking at the last Uchiha evilly.

"What?"

"I bet that I can beat you in a fight. If I win, you have to relax, and if you win, I leave you in piece. Deal?" The older man said, raising one finger.

"Feh." Sasuke said, frowning darkly. If the only way he could get piece was to beat this old fool up, he had no problem with that.

HR.

Ranma twisted nimbly as an ax kick whistled through the air where her head had formerly been, planting her feet on the upper leg and pushing off as hard as she could, before grasping Gai's raised arm and using it as a pivot to twist around to his back. The man reacted instantly, trying to slam himself to the ground and pin the scarily fast Kunoichi in place, but she seemed to expect this, grabbing and pulling his head back before rolling out of the way and letting him slam his own skull into the dirt.

"Ouch." He groaned, and then raised his head, shaking it to try and get rid of the ringing. "You are very good!" He observed, pulling himself to his feet and back into a stance.

"Would be better if I weren't so slow and young." The pink haired girl grumbled, but then shook her head to dispel that thought. Gai seemed to have heard it, but didn't comment as he started in for another attack. This time, Ranma deflected one arm with a palm strike, jabbing two fingers of the other hand into a point just above the joint of the older man's elbow.

The shocked look on Gai's face as his right arm suddenly went limp would stick in the pink haired girl's mind for days, giving her the occasional giggle, but it came at a heavy price as he'd raised a leg for a kick before the pressure point attack had landed, and it connected with her back, sending her tumbling across the ground.

She managed to turn the haphazard movement into a role, but the last blow had been telling, given the sheer strength and endurance difference between a thirteen year old girl and a man in his mid-thirties. "We're gunna have to stop for now." She panted, moving a hand back to try and return her back to a state that didn't remind her of ground hamburger.

"Hmm, all right." Gai nodded, using his own left hand to poke curiously at the dangling fingers of his right. "This will wear off, right?"

"Yeah, in about thirty minutes." Ranma returned.

"You sparred with me for an hour, and though I could tell that you were going near full out and I hadn't taken off my weights, you are a frighteningly good Taijutsuist." Gai said, nodding at the girl in respect.

"Um, thanks." Ranma said, uncertainly.

"But… I must ask, why didn't you use any of the techniques I saw you use on the Ichibi, or even the energy attack that was used on Shikamaru?" The Sensei asked.

"The vacuum blades are sorta a sealed technique, 'n I didn't really feel right about usin the other one on ya unless you pulled out special attacks of your own, especially in a spar." The martial artist said, shrugging.

"Ah, a commitment like mine to not use Ninjutsu while training Lee, I see." The green clad man nodded sagely. "Thank you for the excellent workout."

"Yeah, I gotta pick up some of those moves of yours some time." Ranma agreed, nodding happily. As she turned and walked out of the clearing, she couldn't help thinking that something was wrong. She'd just had a knock-down, drag out fight with someone, and there had been no death threats uttered on either side. Granted, it felt good, but she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

HR.

Several hundred meters away, Neji Hyuga's Byakugan continued to show him what had happened on the battleground where his Sensei and new teammate had fought. He had been practicing his perception with the bloodline, as part of increasing its sensitivity for the new ultimate defense he was working on, when he'd seen the fight.

He'd started to move his vision elsewhere, but as he'd watched, he'd noticed that the Kunoichi was using palm strikes and other energy diverting attacks to defend against Gai Sensei's much more powerful attacks. This had caught his attention, but what had shocked him was when she'd used a disabling Chakra strike to a point just above the other's elbow. She had been using Gentle Fist.

The Hyuga Branch House member frowned darkly. He didn't exactly like the Main House and the rules they'd made, but the mandate was clear, no Non-Hyuga was permitted to use Gentle Fist.

The young genius deactivated his Byakugan, standing from the position he had been meditating in and heading towards the center of the training ground.

HR.

"What is going on here?" Asuma demanded, as he charged through the brush, Choji and Ino following close behind him. The three had started running as soon as they'd heard the sound of explosions coming from where Sasuke had been training.

"Oh, nothing much." The red and grey clad form of Jiraiya said, as he leaned against a tree, Sasuke's unconscious body crumpled before him. "We were just having a little match."

"J… Jiraiya?" Asuma stammered, surprised. "When did the tracking teams find you?"

"Tracking teams?" Jiraiya asked, confused, as he knelt down next to Sasuke to check his vitals. "I came in this morning to see how the village was and do some research."

"Research?" Asuma asked, though he knew what the other Ninja meant. He saw Kakashi reading the man's books enough, after all, and had never owned one himself. Well, there had been that one, but it was strictly as a sample… Then, he realized something. "You mean, you don't know?"

"Don't know… what?" Jiraiya asked, blinking at the other Ninja, and paying no attention as the Kunoichi who had entered behind Asuma rushed over to Sasuke.

"Jiraiya-Sannin, the Hokage has been dead for over a week, and there have been search and deliver orders out on you and Lady Tsunade for the same amount of time."

The Sannin's face went pale as he heard that, and his jovial expression seemed to falter. "I… I see." He said, quietly. "I guess the new Hokage wants to see me?"

Asuma nodded.

Jiraiya returned the nod, and began to move to exit the clearing that Sasuke's training, and the battle that had begun after it, had caused. Stopping at the edge, he looked back at the blonde girl who was tending the Uchiha. "Tell him that I still won the bet. Oh, and tell him to stay the hell away from snakes."

Ino blinked slowly, as her instructor and the strange white haired man both popped out of existence in a gust of leaves. "What…?" She asked, confused, only to get a blank look from Choji.

END.

Okay, well, here's the next bit. Team Gai is... conflicted, and both Sakura and Sasuke have things to gnaw on. My work here is done, for now.


	10. Chapter 9: Relaxing, yeah, sure

Sorry about the delay, but I had good reason, which can be found under the end notes.

Just a note: I'm using Ryo as if they were yen, so 100 Ryo = 1 dollar.

Chapter 9, Relaxing, yeah, sure.

The streets of Konoha were mostly empty by the time Ranma was finished training. Granted, Sakura would be sore the next morning, but it was mostly her fault for spending several hours pondering Naruto's secret, or whatever she was doing. 'Gee, that's considerate of you, Ranma.' Kura-chan said, sarcastically.

The pink haired girl merely shrugged. 'The fact that you're back mean she's all right?' she asked, a little worried.

'Not exactly all right, but better.' Kura-chan reported. 'You took the revelation that one of our classmates is a demon bent on destroying the village pretty well, though.' She said, acidly.

Ranma scowled. 'He ain't the demon, probably.' She returned. 'That's like saying I'm Sakura, just 'cuz we share the same body. Besides, he's too much of an idiot to be truly evil.'

'Y... yeah, I guess he doesn't really act much like a demon, does he?' Came Sakura's very tentative voice.

Ranma couldn't help it, she laughed. 'Look, you had to agree to let me help you before I could ever really manifest,' she explained. 'I don't think Naruto's stupid enough to work with the fox.'

'I what?' Sakura asked.

Kura-chan sighed, and Ranma felt a short stab of pain in her skull as the other apparently vented her anger on someone other than the martial artist, for once. 'Remember? Big fight, Uzumaki and Sasuke-kun about to die?' The shadow reminded. 'You took Ranma's hand, and agreed to let her help you, so she was able to have more freedom than just sitting around inside of your mind.'

'Oh,' Sakura said. It all made sense, she supposed. 'So... what do we do about this?'

Ranma shrugged, and Sakura yelped as she felt several muscles in her back aching. 'We ignore it, like my ol' man does to any large problem. Let the kid handle it.' She replied.

'And where did that get your father?' Kura-chan sniped, irritably.

'Oh, HE made out fine... just don't have any kids.' Ranma returned, sweat dropping as the over-crowded Kunoichi made it to her front door.

HR.

Sasuke woke to the sensation of a soft cloth on his forehead, his entire body feeling vaguely as though he'd run it through a meat grinder. Reluctantly, the last loyal Uchiha cracked open his eyes, the world snapping into focus almost instantly. "Ugh." He groaned, eloquently.

"Sasuke-kun, you're awake?" Ino said, relieve, as she pulled another bandage out of the medical kit she carried, using it to wrap a gash on the boy's arm. "I was worried, you've been out since that white haired guy left."

Sasuke didn't respond, only staring into the trees above him, and thinking. He'd been beaten once again, and unfortunately it had been by techniques that he couldn't copy, as the second his foe had seen him activate the Sharingan he'd started using explosive Kunai and summonings that Sasuke didn't have access to the scroll for. "Useless." The boy muttered, causing Ino to rock back as if she had been slapped, unknowing that he wasn't talking to her.

What really bothered the boy was that his Sharingan had been completely and totally useless. Granted, it had helped project enemy attack locations, but its main effect just couldn't be used against toads, and now Sasuke had a bunch of techniques crowding his head that were anatomically impossible for a human.

That white haired Ninja, though, had shown a tremendous amount of power. He'd summoned a giant toad, the 'Boss Toad,' apparently, with about as much effort as Sasuke would use to activate his fireball, and the last Uchiha somehow doubted that his true power lay in summoning.

"Um, Sasuke-Kun, the old man who fought you, he... he told me to tell you that he won the bet, and to stay away from snakes." Ino tried, hoping that this would get a reaction out of the fixedly staring boy.

Hn," Sasuke returned, having heard, his mind still running at a million miles a minute. If he could incorporate that man's actual Jutsu into his collection, he could be a hundred times more powerful. Then, he came to a realization. If he could bypass a Sharingan's usefulness by using un-copyable techniques at the same time... Yes, he would definitely have to think more about this, and as for the bet, maybe 'relaxing' would be a good way to help him come up with new methods of training, or somehow force the white haired guy to teach him what he knew.

He couldn't refuse the mission of the last Uchiha, after all.

Nearby, Ino looked down, her eyes watering. "Sasuke-kun..." She muttered. "Is this how you act around Sakura, too?"

HR.

In the Hokage's office, Kakashi watched silently as Jiraiya read a coded message the contents of which even he had no idea about. After the man put it down, the interim Hokage leaned over his desk. "Well?" He asked, not really wanting to be disrespectful to one of the Sannin, but also a little curious.

Jiraiya shook his head solemnly. "That's one hell of a last request," He muttered, and then sighed. "I think I'll wait for Tsunade to show up and take the Hokage's position," He smiled crookedly for a moment. "Every Kunoichi in the village would riot and string me up by my toes if I tried. As for the other... He asked me to return to active duty as a Ninja of the Leaf."

Kakashi's uncovered eye widened. "For the fight against Orochimaru," He said, realization suffusing his face.

Jiraiya nodded. "Of course, the old man's last request... I will do it," He decided, not even mentioning the fact that it would interrupt his research, or inconvenience him at all. After all, it was his teacher's final order. "I noticed that the snake already got one of you." he muttered. "I saw the mark on Uchiha's neck, though the counter-seal was done well."

"Yes," Kakashi said, shaking his head. "He was attacked, along with his team, during the second Chunin exam."

"You know that he'll probably strike during the third, right?" Jiraiya offered.

Kakashi scowled. "I know, but we can't cancel. Any show of weakness on Konoha's part, and we'll lose contracts, maybe even get attacked."

Jiraiya nodded. "Do you have any orders for this newly re-instated Jounin?" He asked, trying, rather unsuccessfully, to break the tension that the room had been in even before he'd arrived.

"Other than watching for Orochimaru, not at the moment." Kakashi replied. "Just... don't get too drunk while celebrating the former Hokage's life, all right?"

Jiraiya actually managed a grin at this. "No promises." He returned, and turned to leave.

HR.

'Hey, wake up!' Sakura groaned, as the insistent voice shouted through her mind.

'Don' wanna.' She complained, subconsciously knowing that she would regret moving when she started doing it.

'This is your day off, remember? I'd enjoy it, 'cuz when it's done it's back to merciless training.' Ranma's voice warned again.

"Damn you." Sakura muttered, cracking open her eyes and blearily looking through the window at the sun, which was already a decent portion of the way up the sky. "Oh, so late?" She asked, and threw her legs over the edge of her bed, where upon the shooting pain started in her back. 'Yes, I definitely hate you.' She decided.

'Good to hear,' Ranma returned. "I'm doing my job right.'

"Yeah, right." Sakura muttered, sourly. 'At least it's my day off, and I get to replace this uniform.'

'Oh yeah.' Ranma sounded distinctly unenthusiastic about the prospect of a day of shopping,

'What's wrong, Ranma, you sound like Sakura did when you told her about your training methods.' Kura-chan said, evilly.

'Bad memories of shopping for girls' clothes,' the redhead returned. 'I think I'm gunna stay back here, so I don't see anythin I'll get smacked for.'

'Oh, right.' Sakura said, blushing as she recalled who and what Ranma really was. 'You'd better stay back, or I'll...'

'Yeah, I've heard it before,' Ranma grumbled. 'Just... try not to get anything too impractical, all right?'

'Impractical?' Sakura asked.

'Yeah, like that dress you had before. It could catch your legs, and really didn't protect much other than your modesty. Try for somethin a bit better than that,' Ranma explained.

'Hey, I liked that dress!' Sakura exclaimed, but Ranma had apparently submerged herself deep into their shared mindscape, as she didn't reply.

'Y'know, I think I've got an idea.' Kura-chan said, and Sakura could almost see her evil grin. 'I'll tell you about it later., but it's gunna be good.'

'Okay...' the pink haired girl said, before she heard someone calling from downstairs.

"Sakura-chan, there's someone at the door to see you!" The girl's mother's voice came echoing up the stairs.

"Coming!" The pink haired girl called back.

HR.

'She's a little scary sometimes,' Sakura observed, as TenTen looked at a pair of crossed swords with delight that was normally reserved for a puppy, or copious amounts of candy.

"Too bad I can't really think of an excuse for buying them," the weapons user sighed. "They wouldn't work with my style at all."

"Yeah, they're.. nice." Sakura said, unsure.

"They're works of art!" TenTen corrected, quickly. "Made by the best weapons smith in town, but I don't really know how to use a Katana and Wakazashi."

Sakura nodded. Very few Ninja really knew a sword style like that. "So why not buy them and train with them?" She asked.

TenTen snorted. "On a genin's pay grade?" She said, and then shook her head. "What did you pick out?"

Sakura spread her arms out before turning slowly. She was wearing a set of dark grey pants with black, thicker sections at the knees, under a deep red shirt with circular black patterns woven all along the sleeves and up the sides of the chest. Her hair was still loose, but the Ninja headband no longer tied it, now sitting on her forehead, over her eyes, where most ninja wore it.

"Hmm, it'll work." TenTen decided, nodding back to her.

"So it's practical?" Sakura asked. "Someone told me my old gear didn't work."

TenTen smirked evilly. "Worked well enough on Naruto and Lee," She said, and laughed.

Sakura blushed. "Did you have to bring that up?" She complained.

TenTen just snickered again, before proceeding to the section of the store that sold her usual throwing weapons.

HR.

As she was changing out of her new outfit and back to her street clothes in a changing stall, Sakura couldn't help but be uneasy. There was a steady tingling at the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. Actually, it had felt that way since about half way through the shopping trip, but she hadn't been able to pinpoint why. "I wonder if that woman with the trench coat is watching me again?" She asked, and then closed her eyes, trying to access both her Chakra sense and the new Chi sense that Ranma had been training in her.

Extending her view, she felt the woman in the stall next to her, along with TenTen who was standing outside and waiting patiently. There was a third signal, but as she tried to identify it, she was disturbed by a loud thud, and then a scream from the aforementioned woman.

"Eek, pervert!" The civilian yelled, and Sakura saw a blur shoot over the top of the open stall.

"He's back?!" TenTen exclaimed, and the sound of thrown Kunai could be heard. By the time Sakura had gotten dressed and was pushing the door open, however, TenTen was gone, and there were knocked over racks of clothing and equipment everywhere.

"Where did they go?" Sakura demanded, turning to the civilian who was in the other stall.

"O... over there." She stuttered, surprised, before pointing towards the store entrance.

The Kunoichi nodded, and started to run towards the door.

HR.

"Damn it," Kabuto muttered, as he ran like a man possessed. He'd been ordered to infiltrate Konoha again by Orochimaru, after the older man had gotten over his surprise at the medic's survival, but after he'd completed his primary task he'd spotted the little brat who had caused all this, talking and laughing with another Kunoichi.

Deciding that it couldn't hurt anything, the medic-nin began to track her. Perhaps he could kill the girl, that would be satisfying. Then again, capturing her and asking her about her unusual healing abilities would be even better.

Unfortunately, as the spy had been observing the girl in the store, she'd started scanning the area with her Chakra, along with something... else. Kabuto wasn't sure what that other thing was, but he knew that he didn't want to be detected by it. In retrospect, trying to stand and teleport away while on top of a drop ceiling wasn't the best way of going about that goal, he decided.

Now, he was being chased down by a crazy girl who was tossing weapons at him and screaming that she wouldn't let him get away from her again. "I don't even know you!" He yelled back, chucking several shuriken to slow her down.

Turning a corner rapidly, he noted that there were three Ninja standing in front of him. Without thought, he chucked more of the weapons at them, and two jumped out of his way. Strangely, the third just stood there, allowing the Kunai that had been thrown at him to imbed itself deeply into his shoulder. The red haired boy screamed in a mixture of pain and rage, running towards Kabuto, who casually swatted him aside, sending him crashing to the ground.

Moments later, only his danger sense saved him as a scythe-like blade of air thundered down the open street. He jumped over it, bouncing from an awning to a roof, and then started frantically working an escape jutsu. He had recognized far too late that the boy he'd wounded with a Kunai was Gaara of the sand, and his siblings were with him. Thankfully, the spy had altered his own face enough that no one should be able to recognize him, but it was still a grave error.

HR.

"Bastard, he got away." Temari growled, as she lept to the roof to try and track the Ninja who had just charged past, ignoring the cries of a local merchant whose cart she'd blown to pieces.

"But... my cabbages, again?" The man croaked, as the white clad wind ninja jumped back to the ground, walking back towards her siblings. Gaara was sprawled on the ground, a pool of red growing under one of his shoulders as Kankuro stood over him, looking uncertain.

"Hold on, I'll help out." The puppet master said, ripping some of the white cloth from the puppet on his back and using it to start bandaging his brother's wound.

"It... hurt." Gaara said, not whining or screaming, but in a curiously puzzled tone, as Kankuro gently rolled him over.

"It's all right, we'll get you patched up." Temari said, trying to be reassuring.

Gaara nodded. "The sand, it didn't protect me." He whispered, looking down at the blood that covered the one hand that he could still move without pain. "So, this is the price I must pay?"

"Hell of a way to spend your first day out of hospital, eh?" Kankuro said, trying to be funny. He just got a glare from his sister, and a confused, blank look from Gaara.

"Come on, let's get him back." The girl ordered, sternly.

Kankuro nodded, and the two carefully lifted their still bleeding younger brother, starting to carry him off. As he went, Gaara frowned. "I will need to train, so that I can uphold the Hokage's honor." He decided, though neither of the others heard him.

Nearby, TenTen looked on, irritated at having let the pervert escape again, while Sakura charged up next to her. "Hey, what happened?" The pink haired girl asked, noting the rather odd sight of the red haired boy who she'd previously seen unleash Shukaku being carried off, wounded.

"Damned bastard got away!" TenTen exclaimed, using much stronger language than Sakura had ever heard from her. "I hate perverts."

HR.

Ino stood, staring listlessly at a kunai that she was flipping from finger to finger as she thought. "Useless." She muttered, and threw the blade as hard as she could at the target down range. It smacked into the middle, quivering there for a moment. "I'm not... useless, am I?"

"Good work, Ino!" Asuma congratulated, "Your aim is getting better!"

"Mmhmm." The girl said, nodding and plucking out another Kunai, as Choji and Shikamaru watched on from the sidelines, having completed their last game of chess a few minutes earlier.

"There's something wrong with her." Choji said, finally, after Ino robotically tossed the next Kunai. "Can you tell what she's muttering to herself?"

"Something about uselessness." Shikamaru returned, not finding it unusual at all that Choji expected him to be able to read lips. "If I were to guess, I'd say someone said something to her that upset her." His lips turned down, almost as though he were trying to frown, but didn't really want to expend the effort.

"Uchiha." Choji decided, gritting his teeth.

Shikamaru shrugged. "I doubt he'd be bothered saying anything to her," he observed, "but I suppose it's possible."

"That's it, I'm gunna..." Choji started, clenching his fists.

"Don't do anything stupid." Shikamaru returned, resting a hand on his teammate's shoulder, but this didn't seem to do anything, as the other boy started tromping off, headed for the forest at the edge of the training ground.

Shikamaru sighed. "This is going to be such a drag." He observed, slowly walking after the other. The lie was given to his laid back attitude, however, when one noted that the shadows around his feet were snapping in and out rapidly.

Five minutes later, the explosions began... again. This time, Asuma pondered just leaving whoever it was to their own devices, but decided against it, dashing off. Looking back, he noticed that Ino was still standing where she had before, practicing her punches, but shrugged this off. It was probably better that Genin not get involved in heavy combat if he could stop it.

As he ran into the trees, once again being drawn to the clearing where Sasuke had been training, he stopped in shock at what he saw.

"What did you say to her?" Choji was demanding, upon the end of every rolling attack he made, each one almost flattening the last loyal Uchiha.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Sasuke replied, the volume of his voice giving an idea of precisely how intense the battle was. As Asuma wondered why the black haired boy didn't dodge the easily trackable blows of his opponent, he noted that Shikamaru was standing on the sidelines, in the exact pose that Sasuke was currently in.

"Hmm, well, they are training." He observed, shrugging and turning to leave them to it.

HR.

'Hey, you get your shopping done?' Ranma asked, as Sakura was enjoying the last of her home cooked dinner. The pink haired girl almost choked on the bite.

'Could you have given me a little warning before coming back?" She scowled.

Ranma didn't seem to worry. 'So, that's a yes?' She asked.

"Yes, it is. I'll show you after dinner.' Sakura returned, scooping the last spoonful of rice into her mouth. "Mom, I'm going to go upstairs now." She said, standing and grabbing her bowl, in order to put it into the kitchen first.

On the other side of the table, her mother absently nodded from where she was reading the village's paper, and the pink haired girl started off.

'So, you're going to show her, huh?' Kura-chan snickered evilly.

"Huh?" Ranma asked, but only caused the snickering to get worse.

'Oh, don't worry about it.' Sakura observed, though she was grinning, too.

Once they got upstairs, the kunoichi unpacked her bags, and got changed while carefully not looking at the mirror. Turning to face it, she asked, 'so what do you think?'

'Urk!' was Ranma's only response, as she looked on in shocked horror. 'It's so... p... pink.'

"I know, isn't it great?' Sakura asked, twirling around in the pink, body hugging suit, patterned off of the one Lee and Gai wore. 'It's practical, too. we don't have to worry about enemies catching anything, or the clothes ripping.'

Ranma shuddered violently, the action so strong that it carried over to Sakura's real body. 'I hate you both.' She grumbled, and that was about when Sakura and Kura-chan started giggling frantically.

'Got'cha!" They both yelled, though Sakura made sure that she didn't physically do so.

'What?' Ranma asked, confused.

'You were right, best two thousand Ryo I ever spent.' Sakura giggled, grinning like an idiot. 'I'll show you the real outfit later,' she continued, and then turned speculative. 'but this would be pretty good for working out in.'

Ranma shuddered again. 'So... girly.' She whimpered, softly.

'Aw, grow up!' Kura-chan said, as Sakura started to change back into her regular clothes.

HR.

Neji Hyuga stood before the master of the main clan, his emotions a mix of fear, resentment and duty as he stared into the much taller man's eyes. "Is this report accurate?" The older ninja asked, gesturing to a paper on his desk with Neji's name written at the top.

"Yes, sir." The younger man said, in a clipped tone.

"This is a very serious charge, you realize this, and action will have to be taken immediately if it is true." Hiashi continued. "It is a matter of the honor of the clan's Main House."

"Yes, sir." Neji said again, knowing that to say anything else could possibly get him hit with the caged bird seal, if the clan leader was in a bad mood.

Hiashi considered for a moment. "Accusing the girl on the evidence of one branch house member could cause political problems within the clan, but if she does know our clan techniques, she must be taken care of." He resolved, describing the problem in full, as he saw it. "This means that more evidence must be gathered, and in front of a more reliable witness".

Neji gritted his teeth, the sound almost carrying to the older man, as his reliability was called into question, but he simply responded with another "Yes, sir."

"In that light," Hiashi finally decided, "Your mission is clear. Challenge Miss Haruno to a duel, at this compound. I will officiate. if she uses the gentle fist... kill her."

"Understood, sir." Neji said, and then bowed. "May I leave?"

Hiashi nodded, gesturing negligently with one hand, and Neji turned, walking out of the room. As soon as the door closed, the Ninja reared back, smashing one hand into the wall of the room outside. Fortunately, he wasn't stupid enough to hit it hard enough to leave major damage.

He'd been given his marching orders, however, no matter how condescendingly. He was sure of what he had seen, and would kill Sakura Haruno.

END.

Okay, here's the end note. Just FYI, it's a fanfic plug.

Jonakhensu and I have been working on a little project since the middle of last week. It's an Azumanga Daioh/Ranma crossover, written by both authors using a cooperative writing program called Gobby.

I think it's pretty neat, and if anyone wants to find it, it's called "JonaBee Fanfic, under Jonakhensu's author profile.

Thanks for withstanding the plugs.

Please R&R, tell me what you think of this chapter!


	11. Chapter 10: The Plans Proceed

Note: Don't get all excited about this update. I know it's a small one, and I'm sorry, but I ran into a bit of a problem that it took me a while to figure out how to deal with.

That problem is that I screwed up when writing the Hyuga clan. I know this, and I thank those of you who brought the error to my attention. Next chapter should reveal my method of damage control on that score, but even if it falls a little bit short of making perfect sense, I ask you to cut me a little slack on it.

I suck at rewriting, and it took me a whole bunch of false starts to just say "Screw it, I'll try to fix it in future" rather than rewriting the last couple of chapters.

Now, with that explanation out of the way, enjoy this small chapter, and I hope it leads to more new chapters for this story.

Don't forget to R&R!

Chapter 10: The Plans Proceed.

Sasuke staggered slightly as he made his way down the street, wondering precisely why so many people had decided to get in the way of his goals recently. It was true that he had slowly begun to master the Chidori, but he'd been randomly attacked by three people in the past two days, and hadn't been able to learn any techniques that he was capable of using from any of them.

What was worse, somehow he'd managed to be defeated by Shikamaru and Choji, the later of which caused his eyebrow to twitch just through the remembrance of being run over like a squirrel in front of a supply cart. Putting one leg down wrongly and wincing as it reminded him that it had been heavily bruised in his last fight, the last loyal Uchiha had to wonder if something, somewhere was telling him something.

Coming to a stop in front of a small restaurant, white cloth hangings over the door, he stared in to see that the place was mostly empty, save for a couple chatting at the corner of the bar. He stared in for a moment, before reluctantly stepping past the hangings and up to the counter.

"Hello, welcome to Ichiraku, is there something I can get you?" A brown haired girl, only a few years older than the Uchiha, asked cheerfully from behind the counter.

"Ramen," he ordered, deadpan, sitting on one of the stools and staring at his hands.

The woman looked down at him, about to ask what kind of ramen he wanted, but decided against it as she noticed his disconcerting, black eyed stare. "Right, ramen," she nodded, turning to prepare some plain noodles.

Sasuke ignored her, continuing to stare and think. He'd been beaten, twice in the span of two days. Granted, his Chakra was much weaker than he was used to due to the seal, and he'd been training hard to master his new technique, but the first challenger had been just plain better than he was, not that surprising given his age. That hadn't really been what bothered him, though. He was relatively confident that he could beat both Choji and Shikamaru, even at the same time, but the two had attacked in coordination, and by surprise, never letting him recover from his off balance state at the beginning of the fight and constantly bombarding him.

He would like to say that it was an unfair, cheep shot, but he was a ninja, and like all ninja he'd had most of that beaten out of him at the academy. While recovering from his second fight, a thought had struck him. He'd thought that he could train, and eventually get good enough to defeat his brother in a battle, to avenge his clan, but…

"Who says he has to fight fair?" He muttered, causing the brown haired woman to twitch a little, as she set a bowl down in front of the boy. Taking his chopsticks and bringing some of the noodles to his mouth, his eyes widened. That, of course, meant that he really had no obligation to fight fairly either, though the thought of not taking his vengeance in a one on one fight left a bitter taste in his mouth. He would have to think more about this, and hunt down the old man who had fought him the first day, as well.

For one thing, he would still likely be a good source for techniques, and for another the last loyal Uchiha would rather not go and deal with his two current 'team mates' while he was as banged up as he was.

HR.

'No, that one won't work very well either,' Ranma thought, as she observed Sakura, who was running along the side of the training field as quickly as she could.

'What won't work?" The pink haired girl thought, rather thankful that she didn't have to open her mouth and screw up her breathing to talk to Ranma. 'And can I stop now?'

'It's not important, and no, another five laps,' The redhead ordered, letting her hands flow through several hand seals and recalling what the end result was supposed to be, before shaking her head.

'I think she's going to die,' Kura-chan contributed, worriedly, from where she was sitting and watching Ranma's hand seal practice as well as Sakura's endurance practice.

'She'll faint first,' the redhead disagreed. 'And that shouldn't be for another hour or so.'

'You know, you're such a caring person,' Kura-chan drawled, and Ranma rolled her eyes.

'Look, she'll be fine,' the nominally older girl disagreed just as the Kunoichi missed a turn, smashing into a tree at the edge of the clearing. 'Okay, so maybe I was wrong,' she conceded, beginning to channel chi into Sakura to help her recover.

"That's great," the pink haired girl panted audibly, "I smash myself into a tree and she agrees to help."

'Y'know, ya coulda just asked to stop,' Ranma rebuked, causing Sakura's eyebrow to twitch.

Across the field, TenTen and Neji sat on a bench, observing the Haruno girl. "She's as nuts as Lee," The weapon user proclaimed, sighing and tossing a short blade into the air, only to catch it on the rebound just before it went through Neji's kneecap.

"Hn," he muttered, staring across the field, and the girl shook her head.

"You've been staring at her all day," she noted. "Is there something wrong?"

The Hyuga just shook his head and stood, shading his eyes. He narrowed them, noting that Sakura had picked herself back up and was jogging towards them, looking annoyed for some reason. Unfortunately, ever since he had reported his findings to the clan elder, the Hyuga branch house member hadn't seen any evidence of the tremendous, gentle fist based fighting ability that the girl had shown in her battle with Gai-Sensei. It was almost as though she knew he'd seen her, and was hiding her skill for some reason.

"Look, Neji," TenTen said with a grin as she saw where her team mate's eyes were focused, "If you want to ask her, just do it." Much to the weapon user's surprise, the boy looked at her oddly for a moment, and then nodded.

TenTen was right, Neji decided, even if he had no idea how she'd figured out what he was doing. He would find out during the battle what was going on. Stepping forward, he began across the field to the still jogging Sakura, and TenTen slowly got up behind him, gaping.

"I was… joking?" the black haired girl asked, as the Hyuga boy walked off.

HR.

"I see," Kakashi mumbled, looking over a file in his hand and frowning. It was a testament to how much paperwork he'd acquired that he had taken this long to find out about something this important, and now he really wished that it had stayed buried under the shop owners' association's requests to tear down a training center because it was obstructing access to a side street.

Putting the file down, the face of a female ninja could be seen on the front page, her forehead protector baring a scratched out symbol of the village hidden in the sound. "Can we verify any of this information?" He asked, calmly.

The ANBU before him shook his head. "Other than easily found details on the suddenness of the Sound's formation, nothing truly leaps out at me as obviously verifiable." He looked down at a few papers he was holding in his hand, and continued. "Apparently, a Genin by the name of Kiba Inuzuka identifies that a leaf ninja named Kabuto tried to take the woman's life after she defected, and these reports claim that he is one of Orochimaru's closest allies."

Kakashi nodded, though he was in a bit of a bind at the moment. The woman was possibly a gold mine of information, or a traitor trying to infiltrate the leaf village. There were large problems with the second idea, such as how she would be compromising the Sound's integrity in order to become a spy for them, but it was still a possibility. "She leaves the hospital in two days, correct?" The interim Hokage asked, looking down at the file. At the ANBU's nod, he sighed. "Assign her an apartment, and inform her that she is strictly Prohibited from entering any training facilities or military assets," he decided. "Also, ensure that there is a guard put on her at all times."

The ANBU looked uncomfortable, and Kakashi noticed. "Is there a problem?" He asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"No, sir," the man responded quickly, before vanishing. Kakashi sighed, wondering precisely what else could go wrong.

HR.

"You what?" Sakura asked, surprised, as Neji stood in front of her, giving less evidence that he could possibly be joking than usual.

"I want to challenge you to a fight," Neji repeated himself. "To test my skill against yours."

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said," Sakura muttered, before looking from the boy to the girl standing behind him and back, noting that TenTen was looking at the both of them with a look of dumb shock on her face.

'Well,' Ranma chipped in. 'I doubt you'd really have a chance to beat him, but if it's just a harmless spar, we could learn some of his moves and see how far you've come.'

"What do you mean I don't have a chance to beat him?" Sakura burst out, and seeing the other two looking at her strangely, she laughed. "I mean," her head drooped. "Never mind."

Neji seemed to shrug off this odd outburst, and continued. "Do you accept?"

"I guess it won't hurt anything," Sakura decided. "I really don't think we should do it now, though," she noted, as her body reminded her through almost falling over that she'd spent the last hour and a half running laps.

"Tomorrow," Neji agreed. "There's a training arena at the Hyuga compound."

Sakura nodded, before turning to head for the benches at the side of the training ground, and her lunch. As she drifted out of earshot, TenTen walked up and slapped Neji on the shoulder. "You've really got to work on how you flirt with girls," she noted.

HR.

"Hey, so then I said, 'I'm a famous Ninja,' 'n she just tossed my drink in my face and told me ta get lost! Can you believe that? No respect sometimes, I swear!" Sasuke sighed, as he looked into the bar, noting the person he'd been searching for sitting on a stool, and speaking loudly while waving a mug around. He also had a sketch pad in front of him, and was jotting a few things down in it as he stared across the room at a group of Kunoichi chatting in a corner booth.

Firming his resolve, the last loyal Uchiha walked across to the bar, taking a seat next to the white haired man with the red cloak and clearing his throat. The man didn't seem to notice him, so he cleared his throat one more time, and getting no response, reached out and waved his hand in front of the old man's eyes. "Hey now, you're blockin my view!" The man objected, swatting the black haired boy's hand away, though he did finally turn to face him. "Hey, if it isn't the lumberjack kid."

"Lumberjack kid?" Sasuke couldn't help but ask, rather bemused.

"You know, you were cutting down all those trees," The man explained, before removing his gaze from the young Uchiha, and returning it to the Kunoichi.

Sasuke just snorted, before deciding to get to the point. "I want to ask you for training," he said, almost not believing that he'd said it, given the state his perspective teacher was in at the moment.

"No," The man declared, without taking his eyes off of the girls.

"…no?" Sasuke asked, surprised.

"Too busy with my research," The man answered, scribbling another line down in his notebook.

"Your… research," Sasuke said, slowly, before leaning over to read what the man had written. "34-C, brown hair, blue eyes, the cutest little freckle under her eye, and her vest is open to show her cleavage. Possibly good for third from left harem girl."

The boy's eyebrow twitched, and it then twitched again. "What in the world is this?" He asked, shocked. "You're telling me that watching girls is more important than my revenge against my brother?"

"Most likely," the old man tilted his head to the side. "Yes."

Sasuke face faulted, before dragging himself up to the stool again, leveling a glare at the old man that he seemed not to notice. Reaching out, he grabbed the book, causing the old man to turn towards him almost more quickly than he could follow. "I need training," he reiterated.

The old man's eyes narrowed. "Give me back that book, now," he growled, quietly.

Sasuke shook his head, and activated his Sharingan. The old man tensed up, leaping at the Uchiha with arms stretched wide and murder in his eyes, right before Sasuke poofed out of existence, leaving a log in his place, and began to run. The enraged shout of the old man was loud behind him, quickly followed by the man himself.

As the two exited the bar, the bartender blinked. "Hey, who's gunna pay for all the drinks that guy had?" He demanded irritably, before shaking his head. "Ninja," he snorted. "I knew I shoulda stayed in the capital."

HR.

'I can't believe this,' Sakura muttered, as she lay in her bed, staring up at the bedroom's ceiling. 'Why on earth did I accept a challenge from Neji Hyuga?'

'I don't get it,' Ranma admitted. 'It'll be a hard fight, but he does have a lot of moves we can learn, and you've improved a lot.'

Inside of Sakura's head, she could almost hear Kura-chan slapping her forehead. 'Saotome, he's a genius ninja, one of the best of our generation, and we're going to fight him tomorrow.'

'Ah, sorta like Konatsu, then,' the martial artist mused, and Sakura suddenly saw the image of what looked like a Kunoichi slashing at her with a rather vicious looking sword.

'That's it,' Kura-chan exclaimed. 'I know why you agreed to fight him.' Sakura remained silent, so her inner self continued. 'The idiot's rubbed off on you.'

'Hey, I object to that,' Ranma grumbled irritably.

'Well, think about it,' Kura-chan replied. 'Wasn't it you who couldn't ever refuse a challenge, no matter how stupid it was or how outmatched you were?'

'Hey, I always won,' Ranma shot back instantly.

'Tea ceremony with a monkey?' Kura-chan chanted, evilly.

'Shut up,' Ranma grumbled.

Sakura rolled her eyes. 'Great, so what else should I watch out for so I don't start acting like Ranma?' She asked.

'Huh, well, ya don't have more than one person who wants ta marry you, do ya?' Ranma asked, thinking.

The room dropped into a dead silence for a moment. 'I think I'm going to go to sleep,' Sakura decided, shutting her eyes tightly.

'Um, what'd I say?' Ranma asked, confused.

END.

Omake – Omake – Omake – Omake- Omake.

Sasuke stood across from his brother, his eyes narrowed. "The day has finally come," he said, his knuckles cracking. "I'll destroy you for what you did to our family, Itachi!"

Itachi snorted. "You still haven't become strong enough," he noted. "You should run back to your village."

"Shut up!" Sasuke yelled angrily. "I've got all I need to defeat you!" Holding up one hand, his fist began to crackle with black and purple energy. "Chidori!" He yelled, as loudly as he could.

Itachi braced for impact, but his eyes widened as a figure appeared from behind a rock nearby, wheeling a large crate on the back of a cart. "Don't yell so loud, Sousuke, I'm right here," the figure said, as it appeared entirely from behind the rock, revealing itself to be a teenaged girl in a sailor fuku style school uniform, her blue-green hair hanging loosely down her back.

"Thank you Chidori," Sasuke replied, leaping on top of the crate she was whealing and opening a hatch there, before climbing inside. "Now Itachi, you shall feel the wrath of FUMOFFU!"

"Wha…" Itachi asked, trying to hold back snickers at the high pitched voice that had come from the crate, before one side exploded, the girl named Chidori diving for cover, and a giant stuffed animal looking thing dove out. He was about to let his laughter go anyways, when the creature withdrew a long, shining metal tube from somewhere behind its back and pulled a leaver on one end, sending a high velocity shell into the Ninja's brain.

"Fumo Fumo Fumo FFFFUUUU!" It crowed, as Itachi lay on the ground, half of his skull missing, and it danced around him.

END OMAKE.

I'm sorry, it's just that I'm writing a FMP fic on the side, and I started getting annoyed at how hard it was to keep Sasuke and Sousuke straight. This is what happened. Before anyone says anything, I don't want to talk about the relative power levels involved. Just right it off as rule of funny, okay?


	12. Chapter 11: Title? Um Over there!

Next chapter for you guys. Sorry it took so long to write out, but like I said, I had to rebuild some plot points. Not promising faster updates, since I don't like breaking promises, but things should be a lot clearer from here on in, and possibly faster, maybe.

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 11: Title? Um... Over there!

Walking through the desert, Baki reflected that he'd gotten too used to the easy travel that the forests surrounding Konoha offered, as he reached up and adjusted the cloth he had wrapped around his face to try and keep the sand and wind off. At the moment, he would much rather be watching his team, making sure that the seal the Konoha-nin had told him about was working, but he had to bring news to his village which would likely change most of their plans for the immediate future.

He grimaced at that thought, wondering how the Kazekage and the rest of the advisory council would react to the news. Pulling down the cloth for a moment and shading his eyes, he scanned for the village, but still couldn't see it. He knew he was reasonably close, but something seemed wrong, as he'd been walking for quite a while with no sign of familiar landmarks.

"That's strange," the Jounin muttered, looking up into the sky to note that the sun was hanging over the land to the west, nightfall almost upon him. "I know I'm not slacking off this much," he noted, pulsing his Chakra outward and immediately getting a response, as the sand around him seemed to ripple and snap, resolving into the same scene, though now he could see a set of large rock outcroppings to the west that he recognized as being several miles to the north of Suna.

He considered pretending that the illusion hadn't been broken and turning back towards the village slowly, but he doubted that the weaver of the genjutsu that had trapped him would be enough of a novice not to notice the Chakra pulse he'd used to dispel it. Reaching one hand for a kunai at his waist, the sand-nin was rewarded with a sudden gust of air, and a white haired man appearing before him in a whirl of sand.

"Who are you?" Baki asked, narrowing his eyes and taking stock of his opponent, noting that he wore no village headband, and only somewhat loose fitting blue and white clothing.

"You won't have to worry about that," the newcomer said, raising one arm, and as the Jounin watched, a long white blade seemed to form from somewhere in his forearm. "I am here to remove the trash from my master's path."

Baki was about to respond to that, asking who the other man's master was, when he was sent frantically dodging, barely avoiding being skewered by his opponent's blade. Rapidly rolling to his feet, his wind blade followed his hand as he slashed at the white haired man.

His opponent tried to bring his own blade up to block the strike, even if he couldn't see it, but the white blade was parted neatly, falling to the ground, and its owner winced as a gash was made across his face before he could get himself completely out of the way. "I see," the man nodded, and then frowned, paying no attention to the blood that dripped down his cheek.

Preparing for another offensive, Baki channeled Chakra into the ground around his feet, creating a cloud of the stuff that blew around him, and tried to use the obscuring particles to disguise a retreat, however his foe burst through the same sand cloud, a new blade having taken the place of the old one, and accompanied by another on his other arm. As the Jounin prepared his wind sword for an attack, deciding that it would likely be easier to kill this person who had randomly attacked him than to retreat, the white haired man gracefully leapt over the arc of the invisible weapon, coming down towards the Genin team leader back first.

"What in the…?" Baki started, before several long, sharp spikes shot from the other's back, along the spine and moving so quickly that he couldn't dodge. Two of the spikes landed in his neck before he could cry out, and his opponent landed on the other side of the now dead Ninja, shaking his head.

"It is done," he noted, before vanishing in a whirling mass of sand.

HR.

Sasuke winced, rubbing the side of his face where pain still throbbed. He didn't understand why he had to do this, but the old man had mentioned, after being lead around on a chase for the better part of the last night, that if he did this he would be taught a new technique.

Still, the Uchiha had no idea that it would be so difficult to get such simple information. It was as though it were some of the most heavily guarded in the village, for some reason. Frowning, the black haired boy squared his shoulders. He would get that information, and when he was taught the old man's techniques, he would use them to defeat his brother… then probably kick the old man's ass for making him have to go through this.

Walking down the street, searching for another means to obtain the information he wanted, Sasuke saw several people walking towards him. Two of them, Rock Lee and his teacher, Maito Gai, held little interest for him at the moment, but TenTen, the weapons user of the group, was far more likely a target.

As he walked up to them, the black haired boy caught their conversation. "But I do not understand," Lee was saying. "He never challenges me, I always have to present our challenges to him."

"Hey Lee, are you afraid that Sakura's going to steal your greatest rival?" TenTen giggled, though she was just as confused about the situation as he was.

"No, that is not it at all," Lee objected. "But, even with her increase in skill, Sakura is not nearly as strong as Neji, what if she is hurt?"

"Ah, worried for your girlfriend, I see," TenTen nodded.

"Don't worry my student," Gai said, slapping Lee on the shoulder. "I'm sure Neji knows how to hold back his attacks, and Miss Haruno will be fine. Also, TenTen?"

"Yes, Sensei?" TenTen asked, looking back to the older man, who was walking behind his two students.

"It's very unlikely that Neji will stop fighting Lee. After all, Eternal Rivalry is one of the most important parts of a young person's life!" The older green wearing man said, pumping his fist into the air.

"Uh, right…" TenTen said, slowly, sweat dropping and wondering, once again, why she had been stuck with this bunch of lunatics. The silence after her sensei's last pronouncement lasted for a few uncomfortable moments, before a clearing of a throat nearby finally broke it. Turning, the three noted Sasuke Uchiha, standing with a pad of paper in one hand before them.

"Hello Sasuke, how are you today? Have you learned any new techniques?" Lee asked, excitedly. "Are you going to see Sakura and Neji's battle as well?"

Sasuke looked confused for a moment. He didn't know anything about Sakura and Neji fighting, but shook the unimportant fact off quickly. He simply gave the excitable taijutsu specialist a noncommittal nod, before turning to TenTen. "I have to ask you something," he said quietly, looking steadily into her eyes.

"Um, what?" She asked, feeling just a little creeped out by the black eyed stare, the boy behind it blinking much less frequently than she was used to.

"What are your three sizes?" Sasuke asked, deadpan, producing a pen from the coils of the notebook.

TenTen twitched. "What?" She asked, calmly.

"Your bust size, waist width, and…" Sasuke started, before being cut off by a haymaker to the jaw.

"That's what I thought you said," the weapons user growled, marching past the Uchiha, who was laying against a wall, his eyes staring off into the sky, dazed.

"Why couldn't I feel it coming?" The boy grumbled, as the group walked out of sight.

HR.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Sakura said to herself, for what seemed like the thirtieth time, as she stared into a mirror in the changing room of one of the Hyuga compound's small training fields, straightening her clothes.

'Don't worry, it's just a spar. If he tries anythin really stupid I'll kick his ass,' Ranma's voice came from inside of her head.

She grimaced at the mirror, before turning and starting to go through a few basic stretches. 'Yeah, well it's still a spar against one of the strongest genin in the village,' she thought back.

'Well then, we'll have ta make sure you're ready, right?' Ranma said, and the smirk was almost audible. 'You wanna take your weights off now?'

'My weights…' Sakura thought, and then blinked, recalling the items strapped along her arms and legs. She'd gotten so used to wearing them in the past week and a half that she'd actually almost forgotten they were there,

'Won't give you much of a boost, like Lee's do, but it's still better than none,' Ranma replied. 'Plus, been wanting ta see you try out some of the stuff you've been practicing in a real fight. Sparring with Lee doesn't really give me the information I need, and TenTen's whole thing is ranged work, so she's not much better than you at close combat.'

'Gee, thanks,' Sakura thought, sourly.

'Saotome, did anyone ever tell you that you suck at cheering people up?' Kura-chan chipped in, from the back of their mind, where she'd been rather silent for most of this conversation.

'Oh, um, sorry?; Ranma said, sheepishly, before Sakura sighed, dropped her weights on a bench near the mirror and headed for the door that lead out into the training field.

HR.

Hiashi Hyuga stared at the drawings before him, pondering what they meant. Admittedly, he had been a little curious about the Haruno girl ever since rumors had come to him that she'd been held for questioning after the Third's death, but Neji's report that she had been using techniques that the boy had likely confused for Gentle Fist intrigued him.

Now, he was looking at drawings of the girl that had been made by branch house guards, their Byakugan fully active, as she'd arrived at the compound gates half an hour earlier, and what he was finding was very interesting. For one thing, Neji was likely incorrect about her use of the Gentle Fist, as she definitely didn't have a set of white eyes, though his mistake could be expected, given how little he actually knew about how and why the school was guarded.

The normally very formal man couldn't help but smile a little at the ingenuity the branch house boy had exhibited, managing to take some of the highest level moves of the school from supposedly heavily warded sections of the compound, and their high security, along with what he'd been told about the eyes, likely contributed to a belief that the entire school was forbidden to outsiders, rather than that they simply couldn't learn it.

Of course, the girl's not having the Byakugan wasn't the most interesting thing about her, not by a long shot, and the thing that was, the obvious Chakra pattern of an active demon seal, was far more worrying. At the moment, the fact that the girl had been taken in for questioning by the ANBU was becoming a lot more understandable, and Hiashi seriously wondered why none of the family heads had been informed of this.

Hearing a knock on the door, the man looked up and called "Yes?"

"Sir, the fight you wished to watch is about to begin," a voice called from the other side of the opening, and Hiashi nodded, packing the papers into a small folder and putting it inside of his desk before heading out to see precisely what this Sakura girl was.

HR.

As the two combatants walked out into the middle of a large, grass covered square of land surrounded by benches, Sakura, at least, was rather surprised by the number of people she hadn't seen before who were sitting, watching them. It wasn't nearly as large a crowd as usually gathered at the village's main arena for exam fights, but most of the people in it were Hyuga, and the strange, almost pupil-less stare even their normal eyes held was just about as creepy.

The only ones in the crowd who she recognized were her current team mates, along with a few of the genin from her year including Ino, Choji, Shikamaru and Kiba, who had Akamaru held in his arms.

In the middle of the field was Gai Sensei, standing tall in his green jumpsuit as usual, and noting the arrival of his two students. "Neji, Sakura," the man said, nodding and smiling towards each of them. "Are you ready?"

Neji merely nodded, taking stock of his opponent. "I'm ready," Sakura said, taking a stance across from the Hyuga, who just stood there, much like how Ranma would when the two of them sparred inside of her mindscape.

"All right then!" Gai said, raising one arm to the sky. "This match lasts until forfeit or incapacitation, deliberately lethal blows are strictly forbidden, do you understand?" After both combatants nodded, the green clad man lowered his arm, yelling "Begin!" and vanishing in a teleportation jutsu that put him behind the bench where the rest of the team were.

Neither combatant seemed to move for several seconds, Sakura waiting for Neji to make the first move while he did the same, until the boy, who was trying to induce a specific set of attacks and was already sure of the general outcome, decided to start things off. Kicking off of the ground, he charged for Sakura, one fist raised. She prepared to defend, only realizing that he was telegraphing the blow far too obviously at the last minute, as the branch house Hyuga leapt over her head, landing behind her and spinning on one foot to land a palm strike into her back.

Sakura went flying about half way across the field, however she managed to turn in the air, landing on her feet and skidding to a stop. Neji immediately ran towards her again, and her eyes widened at his speed, though this time she was able to meet him, the two trading several fast blows and blocks. Neji's eyes narrowed as he noted that the girl seemed to be slightly slower than she had been against Gai a few days earlier, though as he missed one of her punches and it hit him in the ribs, he was surprised at the strength displayed.

Sakura, for her part, just grinned as a Chi enhanced attack got through the dark haired boy's defenses. 'Don't get too overconfident,' Ranma's voice rang in her ears, immediately followed by Kura-chan's snickering, and something about pots and kettles.

Ranma's advice soon became rather useful, as Neji increased his hand speed, making it obvious that he'd been holding back, landing two quick, painful strikes to Sakura's arm. As he did, Sakura heard Ranma curse in her head. 'What's wrong?' She asked, digging one foot into the ground and using it to toss herself away from the close in combat.

'Can't you feel it?' Ranma asked, and Sakura narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, she realized. Her arm was going numb, and there was a slight, though still noticeable, burning pain creeping up it. 'He's dumped his life energy into your arm somehow,' Ranma explained. 'It's blocking most of yer Chi and Chakra from getting down it.'

The pink haired girl nodded. "Okay, no close range stuff, then," she muttered, and reached for her kunai with her left hand. Unfortunately, this seemed to suit Neji quite well, as he seemed to squint for a moment, his Byakugan activating, before he tossed his own blade to intercept hers, following it up with two more, one of which she got cut by, leaving a rather deep cut on her arm.

'So, he can paralyze me close up, and he's got better aim than me far off,' she noted, rolling out of the way of another blade, which missed her shirt sleeve by inches.

'Then do something else,' Ranma said, in the annoyingly superior tone that she got when she thought something was obvious. Sakura's eyebrow twitched.

About the only other thing she had, save a few Jutsu that Neji would be able to stop her from performing easily, was the bunch of techniques she'd started learning from Ranma, and she hadn't fully mastered them yet. Worse yet, the only one she could think of trying right now was the Moko-Takabisha, and other than her full body variant, the only way she'd practiced firing it was with her right hand, which was now completely impossible to move.

As the girl tried to think of what to do, Neji stood across from her, a kunai in his hand, and very confused. He hadn't really bothered with following her skill level before, but the few samples he had of it now, since the fight with team Dosu, seemed to be rapidly moving up and down the scale from somewhere near his level to complete rookie and back. Granted, she was starting to stabilize closer to his level, but this annoyed him in many ways, not least of them being that she was, by changing so rapidly, either deliberately holding back or making a mockery of his value system by existing.

Narrowing his eyes, the Hyuga decided to push just a little harder, removing four more kunai, fanning them between his fingers and tossing them. What happened next, he couldn't quite follow. Sakura seemed to grab her uselessly hanging right arm with her left, lifting it so that the open palm at the end was facing towards him. He wasn't sure why she wasn't moving out of the way of the projectiles, though as her Chakra flows began to glow with pure, and very strong, stamina, his eyes widened again.

The girl's arm pulsed once, and she let out a shout of pain, before a large blue ball of energy erupted from the hand, intercepting the kunai and keeping on its course. Neji only managed to jump out of the way at the last minute, and the blue ball dug a furrow in the ground behind him several feet deep. The strangest thing was that Sakura's right arm now moved, dropping into a defensive position with her left, and she was grinning.

She raised the arm by itself this time, firing a much smaller blast, though this one was faster, and Neji cursed, finding himself on the defensive. He tried throwing a few more kunai, but the time it took him to retrieve them from his pouch and aim them was enough for her to aim her own attacks, the much larger balls usually intercepting the pointed projectiles.

Grimacing, Neji decided that the ranged attack game was getting him nowhere, and that he would have a much better chance of seeing what he wanted close to her. Easily tracking the trajectory of her projectiles, now that he knew how they flew, he began moving towards the girl, who tried to get out of range again, though Neji stopped that with a burst of intense speed that put him within punching range.

Sakura cursed as she took his first blow on the arm. Although she knew that she couldn't keep the barrage of small Moko-Takabisha up forever, it had seemed to be the most effective tool she had, and as she tried to disengage and get range on him again, Neji caught her with a leg sweep that she just barely caught herself from, pivoting on her hands and trying to kick his own legs from under him.

As she sprang up again, Neji's palm smashed into her chest, and knowing what to look for she felt the beginnings of the Chakra burn that had effected her arm. Immediately, she shoved chi through her skin in that location, wincing as it started to actually burn. 'Note to self, don't do that to anything internal until I've got better control,' she thought. 'Don't you have anything to say back there?'

'…huh?' Ranma asked, as though she was distracted by something. 'Your fight, remember?'

'My fight,' Sakura grumbled, just as she managed to catch Neji's hand in hers, and the two ended up trading blows with their other fists. For Neji, all this apparently did was cause a bloody lip, but the smaller girl's head seemed to ring like a bell as the punch impacted her cheek, and she could taste blood in her mouth from where she was pretty sure she'd bitten her tongue.

Seeing the pained look on Sakura's face, Neji frowned, jumping back to get some distance. "Why are you holding back when you know you'll lose?" He asked, glaring at her.

"I'm not…" Sakura said, panting for breath, "I'm not holding back."

"Then why haven't you used it?" Neji asked, in a tone too low to carry to the spectators. "Why haven't you started using the gentle fist, and why aren't you moving as quickly as I've seen you move before?"

Sakura simply looked confused. "The gentle fist? Isn't that… I don't know how to use your family school, don't you have to be a Hyuga to know that?"

Neji scowled. He did not like hearing that statement. He knew what he had seen when the girl had been fighting Gai, though now she was standing there, looking rather shaky on her feet, and hadn't pulled the techniques out. The energy flows of the attacks had seemed slightly different, through the fingers rather than the palm of the hand, but… He turned from her, looking up to see that Hiashi was looking down at the field from a window of the building next to the training ground. When the two Hyuga's eyes met, the older man shook his head.

Neji growled in frustration. He didn't understand what was going on here, but he would learn the truth now, or at least end this fight. "If you don't use it, you'll lose," he said calmly, before moving towards her again.

'Wow, he's building up a lot of Chakra there,' Ranma noted, and Sakura could only agree as the boy came at her. Holding her fists in front of her, she prepared to defend, knowing that the match was probably over, but not willing to just give up. Just as Neji began to open his mouth to call his next attack, Sakura did as well, speaking the name of a technique that she actually hadn't quite completed the training for yet.

"Eight Trigrams, two palms!"

"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!"

As Neji's first attacks came in, he was surprised to have both hands forced off target, passing by the girl harmlessly by incredibly quick movements of her own. "Eight Trigrams, Four Palms!" He yelled, increasing speed as he attacked again, though the attacks were brushed off as well. "Eight Trigrams, Eight Palms!" This time, Sakura was sweating, deflecting the last blow as it stroked the front of her shirt. "Eight Trigrams, Sixteen palms!" It was then that the battle ended. Sakura slipped when trying to deflect the fourth palm strike, which landed on her shoulder, sending a pulse of burning pain through her body. The distraction of the pain caused her to miss the fifth, and the sixth. Neji was about to land the sixteenth strike, but stopped, recalling the rules of the match. Even still, without the finishing attack, the girl teetered on her feet for a moment, before falling to the ground.

HR.

She groaned as the light hit her eyes, wondering why she hurt all over. 'Well, you did get hit by twelve Chakra laced palm strikes,' Kura-chan's voice answered her unasked question.

"Right," she muttered. "So, where's Ranma?"

"Who?" Came TenTen's voice, causing Sakura to open her eyes.

'She's off in the back of our mind somewhere. Started saying something about 'understanding now,' whatever that means,' Kura-chan provided. 'And think, don't say, or they'll think you're talking to yourself, remember?'

'But I am talking to myself,' Sakura observed. "Don't worry, it's nothing," she said to TenTen.

"Ah, I thought Neji hit you in the head too hard or something," The other girl said, grinning down at the pink haired girl where she lay on the grass near the edge of the training field.

"TenTen! Do not even joke about that!" Lee said, horrified, from where he stood behind his team's weapons user. Next to him, Neji stood, nursing a rather painful looking black eye that Sakura was reasonably sure she hadn't given him. "Sakura, are you all right? Neji told me that he and the healers here have reversed as much of the damage as they could, but I was worried when you fell."

The kunoichi experimentally moved one arm, and winced as she felt the sensation of sore muscles, but not the somewhat contradictory numb, yet burning sensation she'd begun associating with Neji's attacks. "I'll be fine," she said, sitting up slowly, as the world tried to spin around her.

"I am so glad to hear that!" Lee proclaimed, and TenTen smiled. Neji, however, turned and walked away, towards the Hyuga compound's main house, unnoticed by the rest of the group.

HR.

Neji stood in Hiashi's office's waiting room five minutes later, rubbing his eye where Lee had punched him, and wishing that his team mate wasn't so emotional. He'd mistaken a comment that Neji would leave the girl for the medics to take care of as saying not to give her treatment at all, and attacked him for it.

Sliding the door open, he winced to see Hiashi sitting at the desk, staring directly at him. Of course, now things would be much worse than a black eye as he'd given what seemed to be faulty intelligence to the leader of the main house. It didn't make sense, though. It was as if the girl completely changed the way she fought from one battle to another, though her style when she fought him did have some hints of that used against Gai.

"Neji Hyuga," the older man said, steepling his hands in front of his face to hide his mouth. "You have brought very important intelligence to the house, and you fought well today."

Neji blinked. "Your service to the clan has been noted," Hiashi said, and the young ninja actually let himself gape for a moment, before snapping his mouth shut.

"Thank you, sir." Neji said, confused and wondering precisely what joke was being played on him at the moment. As the main house leader waved for him to leave, he turned and exited the room, his mind full of confusion.

END.

Note: Sakura's skill. That wasn't a perfect Amaguriken, more like half or quarter speed. Also, there's a very good reason why her Chi control seems to be incresing so quickly, which should be revealed next chapter, or the one after that at worst.

Hope the fight was all right.

Please, Read, review and tell me what you thought.


	13. Chapter 12: First Impression

Okay, no excuses. Sorry it took me so long, but it's here, it's a pretty long chapter, and it has some plot progression, so yeah.

Please enjoy, and tell me what you think in a review!

Chapter 12: How Not To Make A First Impression.

"Lord Hokage, Hiashi Hyuga would like to speak with you," the ANBU at Kakashi's office door announced, causing the man to look up from a pile of paperwork and let out a sigh of relief before his brain fully processed who was there.

At this point, he would be glad for almost any interruption, though as he heard that it was a Hyuga, a man whose family he had heard Sarutobi muttering curses at when he thought no one could hear him for years due to the difficulty in dealing with them, his happiness took a few kunai to the face. "Send him in," he decided, setting his pen to one side.

When the door opened to reveal the Hyuga main house leader, he didn't look terribly pleased, however he waited for the door to close silently behind him before he did anything. Slowly, he reached into the top of his brown robe, withdrawing a piece of crisp white paper with something drawn on it and placed it in front of the interim Hokage.

When Kakashi saw what was written on the paper, his good eye widened for just a moment, though he knew that was probably long enough to give him away, and his suspicion was confirmed when the Hyuga man asked, "Why were none of us informed that Haruno was also a demon vessel?"

Kakashi wanted to snap back instantly that she wasn't, for several reasons, but held his tongue for a moment and thought it through first. "Because," he explained, "the demon within her isn't a threat to the village."

Hiashi shook his head. "After what happened to the previous Hokage and the training grounds from the one-tails' release, I, and the rest of the clan, and likely village, would find that rather hard to believe."

Kakashi recognized the threat in those words. Though he hadn't been Hokage for very long, and a lot of the political niceties flew right over his head, that particular one was rather blatant, and he wondered why, before he noticed something in the other man's eyes. He wasn't actually making the threat in the way Kakashi had understood it, though it was still there. At the moment, the predominant emotion in the dark haired man's immeasurably hard to read face seemed to be curiosity.

"That's the whole point, isn't it?" the interim Hokage decided to respond. "We both know what's happened to Naruto Uzumaki over the years, and while what's sealed within Haruno's body is no threat to the village, I know that treatment like that Naruto has received would likely have us end up with a missing-min." He didn't add that she would likely still remember the torture session she'd already been put through, not wanting to admit a screw up of that magnitude had occurred when he was responsible for it.

The clan leader frowned. He could see the Hokage's point, if what he'd originally said was true, but something caught him as strange. He didn't ask, having learned better, but had to wonder precisely what was important about the girl, that the Hokage would be that worried about her leaving the village. Sakura Haruno had been on Kakashi's former genin team, Team 7, however the white eyed man doubted that anyone remotely competent in the post of Hokage would use just that as justification, and though reluctant, Kakashi had made a passable leader. "You're ordering my clan and I to be silent on this matter?" The man asked, more curious than anything else.

"Yes," Kakashi leaned back in his chair, attempting to make his statement seem casual. "Until we know more about exactly what is sealed within her, or she gives us reason to question her allegiance to the village, mentioning this can only harm her and the village's morale."

Hiashi nodded, before turning and heading for the door. He had to talk to some people, Neji high on the list.

HR.

Two kunai zipped through the air, whistling as they went until clanging into each other, deflecting off into the ground. "Hmm, you're getting better," Tenten said, withdrawing another blade and flipping it in one hand.

On the other side of the small training field, Sakura smiled slightly before taking up her own throwing stance. She knew that on some level, the other girl was humoring her, as she'd seen the weapons master throw much more quickly in their mutual spars with Lee, but then, that wasn't with live steel. Tensing up as she saw the other preparing to throw, she tried her hardest to calculate the trajectory of the blade, holding her own up to counter.

"So," Tenten asked, as she flicked her wrist. "What's been wrong with you for the last couple of days?"

Sakura blinked, missing her chance to counter the other girl's throw, and watching as the weapon smacked into a wooden post near her, where three others sat. "Nothing's wrong," the pink haired girl protested weakly, though as Tenten rolled her eyes in exasperation, she used the opportunity to pitch her own kunai.

The black haired girl smirked as she heard the weapon bury itself in the post near her, Sakura's first point of the training session. "You can't distract me with training, like you've been trying to do to yourself, you know," she said, getting another blade ready. "Most people who had just held their own in fights with Hyuga and had to recover from chakra coil damage wouldn't be out training again half a day after the battle, that's all, especially since you aren't even doing that weird stuff you usually do, but actually asked for assignments from Gai Sensei." Half way through her comment, Tenten released her kunai, and nodded approvingly as Sakura immediately threw to intercept, even while looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"It's not important," the pink haired girl muttered quietly.

Tenten smiled at the younger girl, dropping her blade to her side. "If it weren't, you wouldn't let it bother you so much, right?" Sakura frowned darkly, throwing her kunai, and having it quickly intercepted by Tenten's, which had snapped up from a resting position to smack hers out of the air within a few seconds. "What's the matter?" The older girl asked, deciding to be a little more forcefull. "Your boyfriend stop talking to you or something?"

"Not my boyfriend," Sakura muttered, before she could stop herself, and Tenten's eyes widened. Seeing that the weapons master wasn't going to let this go, Sakura decided to tell part of the truth. "Naruto's off somewhere with Team 8, not that I'd ever want to talk to the knuckle head, and Sasuke disappeared yesterday, at least according to Ino, who only told me that after trying to attack me and yelling something about uselessness." The younger kunoichi yelled this, before withdrawing two kunai, throwing them one after another in a burst of irritation.

"Yeah, that would have to suck," Tenten agreed, only catching one of the blades, allowing the other to hit her post and bringing the score up to 2 to 4. She supposed it made sense, everyone was training, and the closest thing she had to friends when that happened were the members of her team. Thinking of that, she looked across the clearing where their training ground was set up to see Gai and Lee engaging in a round of motivational speaking nearby, and she had no idea where Neji was. "Okay, now you've made me depressed," she griped. "How about we stop training for a while and grab something to eat?"

Sakura nodded, relieved that the other girl had taken her first admission and stopped digging there. Somehow, she doubted it would be easy for her to explain that one of the voices in her head had stopped talking to her after the fight with Neji, though she had to admit that what she had said before was bothering her as well.

It seemed that Team 7 was now completely gone, despite that stupid speech Naruto had made long before about their team never giving up, and she had to wonder, just for a moment, where the heck the idiot had gone. "So, Ichiraku?" She asked, not knowing why she'd suggested it.

Tenten laughed.

HR.

Kin Tsuchi was in a rather paradoxical state of mind as she walked down a side street in Konoha. On one hand, she was likely still on Orochimaru's "kill on sight" list, and thus justifiably queasy and paranoid, taking the occasional glance back, and ignoring the ANBU scurrying for cover, waiting for one of her team mates, or worse, one of the Sound Four or Orochimaru himself, to spring from the shadows and take her head off.

On the other hand, she was fantastically bored. Those two states may seem like a contradiction in terms, however as a Ninja, waiting for death to leap out at you was a rather every day occurrence, and at the moment, she would sort of prefer someone to attack her, as long as she could fight on a level playing field against them.

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to find herself any good opponents, as she was pretty weak from the hospital still, and her 'escort' seemed to get jittery every time she got near Konoha's training fields.

Hearing a loud smashing sound, the Sound Nin jumped about three feet, reaching for weapons that she knew had already been confiscated, before she heard the sound of someone grunting in pain, and another voice calling "Sorry, are you all right?" as she hit the ground.

Turning, she noted that there was a clearing in front of her, and laying in it was a short, red haired boy who she recognized. For a moment, she froze up in fear, however when she saw the Sand user laboriously climbing to his feet, her sense of self preservation briefly lost out to curiosity, and she approached.

"Still not used to this," she heard Gaara muttering, as he made it to his feet, wobbling there for a moment. "Again!"

"Are you sure about that?" Another boy's voice asked, concerned. As Gaara nodded, the former Sound Nin watched on in curiosity, noting what looked like another Ninja charging at him. She vaguely recognized the other as Kankuro, the puppet master.

She watched the two blur into close combat taijutsu, and much to her surprise, though Gaara was actually moving and fighting, rather than letting his sand block, Kankuro was actually measurably faster, and obviously winning. Within minutes, the younger of the two was caught with an attack that he couldn't block, flying backwards and making a long furrow in the earth before sliding to a stop.

As the boy hauled himself to his feet, Kin noticed that his body was covered in bruises and he didn't look so good. "What in the world?" She muttered, confused, before watching the entire spectacle again. As Gaara was getting up again, a flash of killing intent came from nearby, and the former sound ninja rolled to the side, only to feel wind blowing across one arm. Looking up, she saw Temari standing there, her giant fan in one hand.

"Either that wasn't aimed to kill me or you've got very bad aim," the black haired girl observed, standing.

Temari shrugged, slinging her fan over her shoulder. "What are you doing here?" She demanded, shortly. Kin wasn't really sure why she was here, herself, so she merely shrugged back. The Sand Nin shook her head. "Then I would leave if I were you," she said, her eyes going back to her brothers, as Gaara flew back again, though this time one of the other's arms was missing, showing that Kankuro was fighting with one of his puppets.

Kin considered following the blonde's advice, especially since she was in no condition to fight if the other girl got serious, but then recalled the ANBU member behind her. "What's going on here," she finally decided to ask. "Why isn't your brother just using his sand to block?"

Temari's eyebrow rose, the wind user not sure if she wanted to believe that the other didn't know anything. "That isn't any of your concern."

Kin thought of pushing that statement, but seeing the rather dangerous glare Temari was giving her, she instead nodded, turning away and starting down the street. This village, she decided, was far too confusing for her to figure out, at least until she got her strength back and the ANBU stopped following her around. As she turned a corner, and threw a look back to the others, she saw Gaara crash to the ground again, and shook her head in bemusement.

HR.

"I can't believe this," Kurenai said, for the fourth time, as she and two of her students stood on the edge of a flat, open field, watching as Naruto faced off against a rather top heavy blonde woman in a grey Kimono top and blue pants.

"Believe it," Shino said levelly, studying the two combatants before him. "Uzumaki's doomed."

Noting Hinata flinching at that pronouncement, the team leader still couldn't help but agree, and the hell of it was, this fiasco was mostly her fault. She'd been trying to teach the boy to tell the difference between reality and an illusion, using minor, typical errors in the latter as a clue ever since the new Team 8 had started their tracking mission, and the boy had been picking up on that for the last few days.

In fact, he'd been making very good progress once he figured out the game, and had even learned one or two illusion based jutsu, but what she hadn't expected was for the boy to decide she was still testing him when they ran across their target, only with two… very large… discrepancies from the picture they'd been given.

Privately, Kurenai couldn't really blame Naruto. The woman's chest looked ridiculous, but trying to dispel her breasts with a Chakra pulse and calling her out as a fake had probably been the wrong way for Naruto to go about such a sensitive situation… especially since their target had apparently been drunk off her ass at the time. "Why do I always have to put up with the drunk and the stupid?" The illusion mistress muttered, too softly for her students to hear. Much to her surprise, nearby she heard a grunt and sigh that both sounded to be in agreement with her statement.

Turning, she saw a dark haired woman in a black Kimono standing next to what appeared to be a pig in a tutu. "Um, maybe Naruto was right about the genjutsu," she muttered, blinking.

The woman was apparently about to respond to that, when two shouts were heard from nearby, and all of the spectators turned to watch the beginning of the fight between Tsunade and Naruto. Surprisingly, the Sannin member didn't immediately incapacitate the Uzumaki boy, though she tried, getting into close range combat with him and hitting him in the chest, immediately dispelling a shadow clone in a puff of white smoke. Wheeling around and extending a foot, she connected with the real Naruto who was coming in for an ax kick behind her, sending him bouncing and rolling across the ground.

Hinata gasped when she saw the orange clad boy take such a violent hit, though Kurenai just shook her head, watching as he managed to get back to his feet, immediately charging back at the older woman, preceded by a hand full of throwing stars. Tsunade just snorted, jumping over the projectiles and coming down with both feet on the Konoha-nin's head, causing him to fall forward into the dirt. "Just give up and apologize," the spectators heard her yell, stepping off of the boy's head with one foot and using the other to grind it into the ground.

"Thank goodness she's still holding back," The woman in the dark kimono said, as Naruto rolled out from under the sannin's foot, yelling something about the Hokage.

"She's holding back?" Hinata asked, confused. "But she's beating Naruto-kun so easily."

"Yes, and if she wasn't, that last attack would have crushed his skull," the newcomer said, calmly. As her students' eyes widened, even Shino's, behind his glasses, Kurenai nodded.

"So that's true…" She muttered, getting a nod.

"How do you know Naruto-kun can't win? Maybe she's not holding back and he's just tough enough to stand up to her?" Hinata suddenly burst out, surprising her teammates.

The older dark haired woman shook her head. "My name is Shizune, I am lady Tsunade's apprentice, and I have seen her fight many times."

"Oh," Hinata said, back to her usual small voice, as she made several hand seals. A second later the veins around her eyes began to bulge, and the Byakugan activated. As she looked at the fight this time, her eyes widened, and a gulp could be heard. "…All that chakra?" She gasped, quietly.

Shizune only nodded in response, as Naruto went flying again, staggering to his feet with a small trail of blood leaking from his mouth. "That's it," the boy said, trying to keep himself upright. "Okay, I get it, you're strong," he panted, causing the blonde woman across from him to smirk.

"Ready to admit you're wrong, kid?" She demanded.

"Not yet," Naruto exclaimed, suddenly making several hand seals in a row. Kurenai's eyes widened as she recognized some of the patterns, but definitely not others. Suddenly, a huge cloud of smoke obscured the battle field, and when it cleared, several dozen shadow clones were surrounding the Sannin.

"What's he playing at?" Shino mumbled. "With that many, she's going to know they're clones, and he can't overwhelm her with numbers."

Apparently, the bug keeper's analysis was flawed, as Tsunade's eyes widened, and she leapt upwards, dodging something the others couldn't see. "So, you're playing for keeps now, huh?" She asked, and a smirk grew on her face as she descended, throwing several Kunai she'd pulled from nowhere into the dirt. Several seconds later, she raised her arms to block something invisible, and Kurenai's eyes widened just as the Blonde yelled "Wait a minute… a genjutsu?"

"Good try, Naruto," The illusion mistress complimented, as a chakra pulse washed over the area, and Tsunade apparently surveyed the ring of Shadow clones.

"You're better than I thought," she admitted, before bringing her hand up to block yet another invisible attack.

"What's happening?" Shizune asked, as her teacher began shadow boxing once more, before another pulse of Chakra washed out from her, and another. As she watched, Kurenai noticed one shadow clone disappearing every time an illusion was dispelled.

"Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" She asked, turning to Hinata, who still had her Byakugan active, and whose eyes were wide in shock.

"It's beautiful..." She muttered, seeing something that the others could not.

As the tenth illusion fell, and the tenth clone disappeared, all of the Naruto seemed to flinch in unison, and Tsunade blinked, as Kurenai guessed that she got a small glimpse of reality before Naruto could regenerate the jutsu. "You little…" The older woman muttered, before dashing forward, out of the ring of clones and towards a rock in the middle of the field. Grabbing the rock, which looked to weigh several tons, she turned with little apparent effort and pitched it into the mass of shadow clones, dispelling several at once.

This seemed to have a profound impact on Naruto, as the remainder of the clones popped out of existence, and the boy screamed in agony before falling to the ground, his hands on his head.

HR.

"All right, so you want to kill your brother because he destroyed your clan," Jiraiya said, leaning in a casual pose as he read his book, making corrections with a yellow highlighter. "And you want to train with me to get stronger, because you saw how awesome I am."

Sasuke grimaced, but didn't comment.

"Well you did get me what I asked for, so I guess I can train you, but I've got to ask you something first," The sannin asked, before turning a page and frowning. "What was I thinking with this part?" He grumbled, tearing the page out and throwing it over his shoulder.

"What is it?" Sasuke asked, beginning to regret his decision to pursue training with the white haired man already.

"You're supposed to be hunting your brother down, but you also promised to rebuild your clan, right? Why the heck aren't you going after any girls?" Jiraiya's question was only answered by a disbelieving stare from the Uchiha, so he continued rapidly. "Look, I'm a dirty old man, even I admit that," He muttered too low for Sasuke to hear 'When I have to,' and then continued. "But you're just coming into being a teenager, you've got permission to be as horny as you want for the next seven years or so, and you're wasting it!"

"Hn," Sasuke muttered, giving his sensei a rather dubious look.

"Hey, it was just a suggestion," The older man said. "But you should think about it. After all, if you get killed fighting your brother, or if you BOTH die, how's the Uchiha clan going to come back?"

Sasuke stopped for a moment before he shook his head. "Never mind that," he said, gruffly. "I did what you want, so can we get started?"

Jiraiya nodded. He knew that he'd convinced the Uchiha boy of at least something, and anything to stop him from focusing on vengeance and anger would help, especially with the seal on his neck working tirelessly to destroy any positive feelings he had. "All right, I've got a few basic techniques that could help immeasurably," He decided, turning to wise sensei mode.

Sasuke nodded in satisfaction, as the two ninja settled down across from each other, and the toad sage began talking.

HR.

"He'll be fine in a day or two," Hinata sighed in relief as Tsunade leaned back from Naruto's unconscious body, her hands fading from the chakra infused glow that had enveloped them for the past five minutes. "That was the most idiotic thing I've ever seen someone do… even if it worked."

"Thank you for healing Naruto-kun," The Hyuga of the group said, bowing slightly before standing.

"Yeah, well, it was half my fault he got this way in the first place," the sannin admitted. "I really shouldn't let loud mouthed brats get me so pissed off."

"What happened to him?" Kurenai asked, kneeling down to examine the boy. "He didn't get hit by that rock."

"It's actually mental over-exertion, probably," Tsunade replied. "Having a genjutsu broken isn't a very pleasant experience, especially for a novice, that's why it disrupted the clone that performed it when I broke each one, but the backlash was spread across all of the other shadow clones…"

"Until you destroyed enough to make the memory of all of the backlash too strong," Hinata realized, her hands wringing in worry.

"Yeah, pretty much," The sanin said, smiling at the girl. Normally, she didn't like Hyuga healers, since they liked to pretend that their eyes made them god's gift to medicine, which tended to piss her off immeasurably, but the girl seemed to have some brains in her head and a lot less ego than usual. "Can you watch him and tell me if he wakes up?"

Hinata nodded quickly, and Tsundade stood along with Kurenai. "So," She said, once she was out of earshot of both the students and her apprentice, who was watching over Naruto along with Hinata. "You're from the Leaf, so you're not here to collect a debt, what's happening?"

The junin quirked an eyebrow at the debt comment, before nodding. "We're here to recover you or Jiraiya Sennin," She explained. "It was apparently one of the Third Hokage's orders, before he died."

Tsunade gasped. "Sarutobi-sensei's… dead?" The bottom seemed to drop out of her stomach as she heard this news, though she did her best not to show it. "How did it happen?"

"One of the tailed demons attacked the village," Kurenai explained. "He died sealing it."

"That'd explain why the kid was going on about the Hokage," Tsunade muttered. "Guess even he couldn't escape the curse." At the Junin's strange look, the older woman shook her head. "I don't really know why he'd want us back," She was, of course, lying through her teeth, but didn't want to admit that she was pretty much walking into a trap. "But a last request's pretty damned serious, let's go."

Kurenai nodded, resisting the urge to sigh in relief. When Naruto had started quite possibly the biggest diplomatic gaff she'd ever seen, she'd feared that the mission was a failure, but apparently she was wrong. As she thought about the success of the mission, she slapped her forehead. "How am I going to write this up without making myself and Naruto look like complete idiots?" She muttered, though apparently loudly enough for the sannin to hear.

Tsunade snickered. "I'll help you with the report," she offered. "I've made drinking binges into heroic chases for missing-nin we accidentally found at the bar before, I can probably do it again."

Kurenai wanted to ask about that, but decided it wasn't a terribly good idea, as the incredibly powerful medic-nin was cooperating, and she didn't like to push her luck. "Um, thank you," She said instead.

HR.

The village hidden in the sand was a relatively peaceful place at the moment, especially since the demon container had left, and the village's ninja population was busy preparing for something. Most of the civilians thought this was a good thing, a reprieve from the usual harshness of the desert, though others were even more on guard due to it, as they had heard the term 'The calm before the storm,' and didn't want to be hit in the face with whatever was coming.

It was no surprise to this second group, therefore, when a Ninja staggered down the path to the front gates of the village, a rather prominent wound gushing blood from his side, his grey hair matted to his scalp, and a pair of broken glasses dangling from one ear.

As it had been a rather lazy day so far, the village guards didn't see the man until he was only a hundred feet or so from the gate, and were only half way through their threat evaluation process when he collapsed, one hand reaching desperately for the opening before him.

Immediately, one of the guards leapt down to the obviously wounded man, gently rolling him over. "Are you all right?" He asked, reaching for a walkie-talkie to call in a medic team.

"Tell the council," The grey haired man managed to croak out. "Konoha… They killed them all…" As the guard's eyes widened, Kabuto struggled to hide a smirk, using his extensive medical knowledge to fake passing out, and listening as the guard made a frantic call to the village's leaders.

END.

You can skip this one if you want, but I figured I should tell you. I haven't been nearly as long without updates as some of you may think. I've been working on that other project I mentioned a few chapters back, among other things, on a cooperative account called "Jonabee." Yes, this is a shameless plug. Thank you, and hope you enjoyed the chapter.


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